A good listener

So I was riding the bus today and I thought I was going to be late. Let me explain why. You see, there are three drivers you might see on that 4 a.m. bus. Whenever the lady bus driver is on duty you might be late. Not saying that women drivers are slow or anything but SHE is. What is crazy is that she is only slow by about 1-3 minutes but those are crucial to the train timetable and means the difference between you walking and running.

Anyway, I barely made it in time but that meant that I would have to get to the closest car. When I hopped on the train it was like the sleeping car on an Amtrak train. People laid out all over the place. I overheard what sounded like a conversation that was quickly degenerating into a possible argument The one guy is saying that he could not get i a word edgewise whereas the man he accused of hogging the conversation was actually trying to say something that the first guy would not let him finish. Go figure.

On the way back I took an alternate route so that I wouldn't have to be bothered by people. It worked all the way to 79th street. I'm sitting at the bus stop and this random lady sits down next to me and starts talking about how she lost her money orders and that she was on the way to getting the replaced. Before I could tell her that I didn't give a rat's tattooed ass she thanks me for being a good listener. Way to go, lady. Now I feel bad. When the bus pulls up I hop on and immediately go to the back so I wouldn't have to hear more of the story for the rest of the ride. When I get to the back I notice that this bus is musty. I can endure it!Suddenly, a guy comes to the back and sits down. What the holy hell is that new smell? Hey, mister? Why does it smell like you have been tap dancing in dog turds? Man, I really need a car.

The Dating Train! Dah dah dah dah.....dah...dah dah dah

So I was riding the train the other day and this young lady keep looking at me. I kept glancing back to see if she was watching me watch her watching me. She asks me if this side is going south. I say yes rather quickly. She keeps looking at me as if she wants to say something else. Do I have a booger hanging out? Is my face breaking out? Is there chicken McNuggets and Sweet and Sour sauce in my beard? She finally gets the courage to ask me how long before the train gets there. Hmmm. I read the train timetable on my way down to the platform and she was slightly ahead of me. Did she not see it? Wait....is she flirting with me? Nah. I tell her that the train is due in about 4 minutes. "Oh, OK." So I continue eating my nuggets. I was going to offer her some but she was a very, VERY healthy girl and I didn't know if she would take offense. "What? Just because I'm fat you think I eat all the time?" That is a fight I don't want to have so I keep to myself. It's not as if she was ugly or anything. She was very pretty. She looked like a big girl version of Regina Hall. I like Regina Hall. Anyway, she looked very young and I'm an old fart so I brush it off. Every time I glance at her she is looking at me and then glances away very quickly. Do I look like one of those guys on the cop shows or the wanted posters? Maybe she IS flirting with me. I don't know for sure but she just looks too young for that to be the case. Wait. It is like damn near midnight and she is on the train. Maybe she is full grown and just LOOKS young. I know a lot of women you would swear were teenagers who are actually mothers of teenagers. By the time I figure out that I could have asked her out I find myself typing this statement. D'oh!

The smell of success

So I was riding the bus on my way to the train station. I was a bit discombobulated because I had not slept very much the previous night. The lady bus driver on my route was late as usual by about a minute. You may say that is not much and call me "anal" or "picky" but those minutes add up when you are trying to catch the connecting train. Luckily the train was late as well. My issues for the day did not start until I boarded the train. Why does this train smell like onions? Wait. It's worse than that. It smells like an onion, smothered in onions with and onion sauce made from caramelized onions with a side of onion rings and a glass of onion juice with a scallion in it. OMG! Can I withstand this all the way to 55th St? I look around to see if I can guess who is wearing "Ode de Onion" cologne but by the time I nearly figured it out the smell distracted me long enough to make it to my stop.

Back from the Future or Nah Nah Nah gonna have a good time

So I was coming home on the bus from the Westside (WWEEEESSTTTSSIIIIIIIIIIIIIDEE! Ahem!) and I get all the way to 79th and the Dan Ryan without incident. In fact I thought it was going to be a boring trip. The bus gets to the stop and I'm ready to board because it was windy as hell and trying to rain on me. This guy gets up and is ready to step onto the sidewalk (for my friends down South we have these things called "Sidewalks" that....well we will get into that some other time) but he suddenly stopped. He was standing in the doorway pondering his next move. Dude. Dude? DUDE! I'm standing here like an extra in the movie "Noah" and you are pondering the meaning of existence. What...the...flying....FUCK, DUDE?!?! He finally settles on a course of action and sits down. That's when I noticed it. This guy had a time machine and was from the future! What?! I hear you out there. You doubt my sincerity. I feel you. Let me give you the evidence and you can judge for yourself. The guy had a huge afro and was dressed like Rudy from the Cosby kids cartoon, complete with the hat.

This guy

Why would that make him a time-traveler from the future? It's obvious! He was from the future and he dressed the way he thought we dressed but missed it by a few decades and when he saw that we were different he got confused. He was like "Oh, Shit! I missed it by 40 years! I better not get off here until I can figure out where I ended up."

The situation is escalated

So i was riding the train today. Nothing much happened on the train but when I got off I walked to the escalator. I was following a young lady that was very pretty. So pretty that I wanted to ask her for her number. You know it's hard for me to find women near my height that don't have a gaggle of kids. Hey, pretty lady. I want to ask you a few questions. Why is she walking so fast? WTH?! Hard....to....keep up. Skip it. She gets away from me and I notice another lady who apparently thought that wearing slippers on the train was a good idea. Really? On the train? I don't know about you lady but you may want to burn those when you get home.

Anyway, as I get overtaken once again I step onto the escalator and I turn to see who is behind me. An older lady has an empty fold up shopping cart and she tries to wheel it onto the escalator. She quickly find out that the wheel base is wider than the side rails and it slips out of her hand. She panics and turns to retrieve her cart. She takes two steps and reaches for it. The escalator is moving so it is just out of her reach. She takes two more steps and reaches. She repeats this process a few more times until she realizes that she will never catch up to her cart. EVER! Finally she turns and rides all the way up then she walks down the stairs to dislodge her cart. I thought I was watching a Benny Hill marathon for a minute. What is really jacked up is if she is going to the store she will be fucked when she tries to get a FULL cart up the escalator.

Warm weather flatulence

So I was on the bus this morning and this lady was asleep. Well, I think she was asleep but I couldn't tell (she was slumped over and her head was at an extreme angle). I wasn't sure if she was just asleep or she was unconscious. I was afraid to wake her because she seemed very tired. Plus I couldn't tell if she was just on her way someplace or she was homeless. A lot of homeless people use the busses and trains as shelter when the weather is cold so it's hard to tell (the Red and Blue lines are like flop houses during the night since they are the only lines that run overnight).Other than that the ride was normal for a change.

Anyway, on my way back the ride was still normal for the most part. I say this because I seemed to be aware of things that I would not notice any other day. For instance, the number of women with large hands. They seemed to be all around me kind of like that that skit on Seinfeld where the lady had "man hands." I wonder what that would do for a man's self esteem if his women was ham-fisted. Also there seemed to be a variety of strange smells on the CTA today. Like when I got on the train this lady smelled of weed. Now, let me explain how Chicago weed smells for my friends down South. You know how it smells in the Summertime when the skunks are in heat? That is what the weed smells like in Chicago AND THEY LOVE THAT SHIT!! I don't know how they figure they can smoke that shit and not tip off their bosses to the fact they are high. Next I'm on the bus and I smell a poot. Wait....did this lady in front of me just poot in my face? What the hell lady?!?! I don't know you like that!! I know it was a poot because it was silent and not as bad as a fart. Plus, most ladies poot rather than fart. I know it had to be her because it hit my face as she was bent over to sit down AND she had a large ass (I imagine that women with big asses poot more than skinny chicks but I don't have any hard data on that). If I ever try to get a doctorates maybe I can do my research on that.

Wide load and a load of crap

So I was riding the bus today and I was in a hurry.  I was trying to catch a showtime to see "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and I was cutting it close.  I think the bus stopped at EVERY FRIGGIN' STOP.  The closer I got to the Dan Ryan train the more anxious I became.  I then noticed a guy who was talking very loud about church stuff but he was just saying it to the ether because no one was having a conversation with him.  Suddenly another guy responded and they had a lovely conversation until the other guy was distracted by a pair of females he knew.  That is when I noticed that a bunch of people were clogging the front of the bus.  There were plenty of seats so there was no reason to be up front.  The main offender was another CTA employee talking to the driver.  It was like they only signed up with the CTTA to find other people with good jobs that wanted to hook up for dates.  It would not have been so bad if the lady didn't have such massive hips and ass blocking the way on and off the bus.  Her ass was so big (how big was it?) the Fire Marshall slapped a ticket on it for a fire hazard warning.

The funny thing is that the big girl that was blocking the front is actually in front of the big girl you see there.

Anyway once I got to the train station I went to the end of the platform so that I could meet my buddy on the last car.  As I passed the last set of benches I noticed something strange.  Some one had pooped in the cover bench area and used a child's glove to wipe his or her ass.  It was very messy and made me want to puke.  I would have taken a pic to show you but I felt it was in poor taste.  When I told my friend about it he said I should have just to prove that I see messed up things on the train.  No, thank you, but if you want to see it for yourself it may still be at 79th and the Dan Ryan train stop, if that is your sort of thing.

Accordions and fries

So I was riding the train back from Dialysis and it was raining so various people had umbrellas. However upon exiting the train on 79th I was nearly skewered twice by people not watching where they were going. It was like I was a stuntman on the set of "A Knight's Tale." It's was almost a gauntlet trying to get to the bus. Then once I got off the escalator I see not one but two busses. Oh, crap. I'm going to have to run again. I was praying that the driver saw us (a young lady was running beside me) and a car driver saw that we were trying to catch the bus and took pity on us. Once we got across the street it was a different story. The first bus was stuck while a rider was trying to fix his tote that toppled in the door(he had a couple of totes that he probably used to sell stuff).The bus in the rear was blocked by the first bus and the ass of the bus was nearly in oncoming traffic. We must have sat for 10 minutes before the driver decided to take a risk and BACK UP on the 79th and the Dan Ryan expressway overpass. Wait, what? This is an extended bus! It's what we affectionately refer to as an accordion bus. All I could think of was how hurt I was about to be when this sucker jackknifes and a semi rips the back end of the bus off as it plows into us. Of course that didn't happen but it sounded dramatic, didn't it?

Anyway once we were on our way I felt as though the person behind me was staring at my fries. I had stopped at Checker's (Rally's to you West Coast people) and got a few sandwiches and a an order of fries. You know how you feel as though someone's eyes are burning into the back of your head? Add that to a side order of fries. Dude! No you can't have any of my fries. I don't know where your hands have been! Then a guy gets on the bus and I forget all about the guy behind me. This dude is carrying a 26" flat screen TV newly purchased from Walmart. You could see where the box was starting to get soaked from the rain. Who does that? Clearly this man has NO friends because no one in their right mind walks around with new electronics in the rain if the can help it. He should have called a cab but I had the feeling he spent his last on the TV and the minor stuff in the other bag. I hope he lets it dry out before he plugs it in.

Anyway a lady got on the bus. From where I sat she looked to be around 30-ish and attractive. Well, let's just say my vision has been off a bit lately because as she came closer she seemed to age to 50-ish and looked like a crackhead. Well just to be fair I don't want to assume she was a crackhead but she was crackhead adjacent. NOw I see how guys end up with ugly chicks they take home from the bar.