I came to the sudden realization tonight that Metra is absolutely the bane of my very existence. Looking back at the last, oh, 6 years of commuting into the city for various reasons it became obvious to me that taking it has led me directly into events that make up at least 40% of the most annoying events of my life.
Let's just take the last year alone.
(yes, another list. I like lists, shut up)
1) Random drunk lectures me on how his life is terrible and he's a bad person, pukes on my shoes in the vestibule.
2) Random Lady spills coke on my jacket. Not a can, mind you, but gigantic 378 oz stein of coke.
3) Get Boston Creme donut at Dunkin' Donuts...had no creme in it at all.
4) Random drunk questions my sexuality after being denied a cigarette, proceeds to try and fight me, ends up losing some teeth and his consciousness in the process.
5) Morbidly obese woman sits next to me on train, sits on my bag as she doesn't give me the chance to move my gear. Turns out she's sick and spends the next hour and half wheezing and coughing on me. Also tries to read my text messages.
6) This one starts out nice and heart-warming...While riding the train to school, a woman with 2 toddlers flipped the seat and sat in front of me. Now for some reason, kids always take to me. Probably because they sense that I have the mind of a toddler or something which is fine as I like kids. Throughout the train ride the mother talks on the phone and completely ignores her children, one of which is sleeping while the other raises hell in the aisles. Not having much choice but to sit and hear her conversation as she talks on the phone like she was giving a state address in Ebonics, I prepare myself for another long trip. Suddenly, I notice that the hell raiser keeps running past my seat and then cranes his neck back to see if I'm looking. Next thing I know...
I'm in the middle of a white knuckle staring contest.
It was intense, and this kid had the heart of a champion, but I'm not about to be punked out and lose my title to a munchkin, not no way, not no how. Eventually he yields, but before I can enjoy my victory it seems the game has now changed into "peek-a-boo".
Game on kid, game on.
This goes on for about 3 minutes and we're both laughing along with most of the nearby riders who by now have turned to see what all the ruckus is about, only to see a giant metal-head playing a game with a kid that barely breaks the 2 feet tall mark. Then the other shoe drops. The mother gets off the phone and quickly corrals her child back to their seats, glaring at me the entire time like I'm some sort of pederast or gypsy who's looking to steal her child. Then she tells her kid that he can't go around doing that because while she was on the phone, I could have kidnapped him and she wouldn't have known until it was too late. She then spends the rest of the ride making short phone calls and forcing her kid back into his seat and glaring at me while he tries for a staring contest rematch.
Here is, in my humble opinion, a sound piece of advice for when you're out in public with your kids that you shouldn't have had;
Stay off your f**king phone and pay attention to your kids, you can catch up on all the latest trivial gossip later.
Sorry, 6 was a bit long-winded and self-righteous but that drove me nuts, but this brings me to tonight's event...
7) A reasonably attractive girl in probably her mid-twenties gets on and takes the seat in front of me, at this point my iPod dies. With an hour left, I sit there and listen to her laugh, nay, shriek like she's watching the uncut version of The Forty-Year Old Virgin. Curiosity finally gets the better of me and I try and see what she's finding so hilarious...
She's got a travel DVD player and in the reflection of the train window, I see something that takes me back in time. A time where I lived with my grandmother, who watches all sorts of terrible TV.
She's watching The Golden Girls.
I spend the rest of the time trying to listen to music in my head and figure out how someone can find Bea Arthur and that lady that does the Pet-Med info-mercials as comical as a redneck finds Jeff Foxworthy. Thank god for her earphones, otherwise I probably would have snapped.
I hate The Golden Girls.
