July 25th, 2011-First Day of July 7-Day Transit Pass

7/25/11: IB Blue Line train. I am in Budd car #2351 on my way to Western to visit some friends residing not far from the station. The train stops at Kedzie-Homan, the preceding stop. The doors open, I rise to my feet in preparation to get off at Western, and then I hear a tall, slim black teen near me, to the right, say,

"Uhhhh, that is sick as hell!"

I look in the direction that he is looking in to spot a black male, tall and skinny, with a red mohawk and wearing tight silk-resembling cotton clothing. You can almost see through his pants! My reaction was the agaped reaction, and my thought was,

"Oh you fuckin' nasty faggot!"

I'm sure that the teen boy who saw him first had the exact same mental thought.

LATER
Jackson Red Line stop: I am waiting for a SB Red Line train to 69th so I can visit a friend who doesn't live very far from the station. As I am looking to the north for a train, I find an unusual standee wandering around the platform-a pigeon! He pecks the subway platform for food as he awaits a train, pecks and pecks and pecks and pecks and pecks some more. Suddenly, he flies towards the tunnel wall and then back to the platform. All it takes is a second for him to fly off the platform and back, obviously looking for his train, but not finding it. Not long afterward, he suddenly disappears. I guess he got tired of waiting for the train to come. He probably said,

"Who needs this train when I can fly faster than it can ever travel?"

LATER ON
NB Red Line train: An Asian lady boards at Sox-35th and sits in a seat across from me. All is calm, until about a minute after the train pulls off. She unwraps some kind of food, I couldn't tell what it was, but it was yellow, round, grainy, and odorless, and she begins eating it, occasionally taking glances over at me, probably trying to see what my reaction was to her eating on the train. I had an angry look on my face, and if I had the desire to, I would've said to her,

"You DO know that eating isn't allowed on the train, don't you?"

Thankfully, the hungry hound exits at Roosevelt, taking her catch with her.

AND LATER ON
OB Blue Line train: I am sitting towards the rear of Budd car #2252, enjoying my ride to the Kedzie-Homan stop. When the train approaches the Illinois Medical District stop, a light-skinned, brown-eyed, bushy-headed young woman busts into this car from the opposite end and begs for money. As she asks people from money, she says things such as,

"They want ya'll to think I'm homeless, but I ain't homeless. I got somewhere to go!"
"They want ya'll to think I'm homeless, to think I'm on drugs, to think I'm slow, I ain't oan none of that!"

And then, as she passes my seat on her way to the next car, to harrass other innocent passengers, she, for some odd reason says,

"I oughta blow all ya'll up. I don't care 'bout no fuckin' prison."

Because I was in that same car with at least five other passengers at the time she made that statement, I stuck up my middle finger at her, as she opened the door to get to the next car. And I don't care if she did see that either, but I think she did.

THREE LITTLE HORROR STORIES. THREE DIFFERENT DATES

THIS IS A BLOG ENTRY CONTAINING SEVERAL THINGS WHICH HAPPENED ON PUBLIC TRANSIT BETWEEN FALL 2007 AND WINTER 2009. ALL WERE NOT SCARY AT ALL TO ME, EXCEPT FOR ONE. YOU CAN READ ABOUT IT AND THE OTHERS IN THIS ENTRY. ENJOY, AND KEEP THE LIGHTS ON PLEASE.

SEPTEMBER 2007: I am on a WB #67 bus at the 69th Red Line stop en route to my apartment near 69th & Ashland. The bus pulls off and makes a right turn onto Lafayette on its way to 69th Street, but as soon as it turns onto Lafayette, it completely shuts down, right in the middle of the street, and its lights cut off. A couple of long, frantic, high-pitched screams are heard from the back of the bus. The screams last for six seconds. Soon afterward, the driver pushes a button or something and that restarts the bus, and it runs smoothly throughout the remainder of my trip to Paulina 1/8 mile west of Ashland, re-assuring the screamers in the back.

DECEMBER 2007: Extreme cold has strickened the area, but that does not stop me from taking the perilous journey out to west suburban Maywood to spend time with relatives who reside there. I board an Ashland bus and take it to the Blue Line getting on a WB train at Illinois Medical District station. It didn't take it long to arrive, about one minute, but it sure in the hell took it a long time to get from that point to the Forest Park terminal. Why? The cold really messed with it, causing it to move about, I would say, 15 m.p.h. the entire trip. Every little move it made along the 600V DC third rail caused white and bluish-white sparks to shoot forth without a break! I was the only one in that rail car, a 2200 series car, so no complaining was heard from other people, neither was there any from me. However, I was slightly panic-stricken, worrying that, if the train stopped completely and shut down, how long would it take for assistance to arrive and what should I do thereafter? Fortunately, it pulled into the Forest Park Terminal without any other problems and the few passengers on board (about a dozen excluding me) exited the train unharmed.

FEBRUARY 2009: It is a cold Friday night, less than 30 degrees Fahrenheit outside. I am riding on a SB #9 Ashland bus to go home from doing a little grocery shopping at the Dominicks store at Ashland/Archer. The local #9 continues on the street level part of Ashland between 37th and 40th or something like that, while the #X9 Ashland Express bus continues up the Ashland bridge between 37th and 40th Streets, making no stops. I am on a regular #9 bus, and when the bus comes tothe stop light at 39th Street (a.k.a. Pershing), it shuts off completely and the lights go off!
All I can see thanks to the dim streetlights are the legs of passengers across from me, and all that I can hear are long, high-pitched screams, two of them, a virtual repeat of the #67 bus shutting off in 2007! Driver does the same little troubleshooting technique to bring the bus back to life. A woman near me suddenly blurts out,

"This is a really bad spot to be stopped at."

I do agree, because the area is heavily industrial and therefore, dark, dead, and desolate at night.

Yelp Bling Relating To My Fave Public Transit Bling Lol

BELOW IS A BLING FROM MY YELP ACCOUNT THAT SHOWS THOSE WHO MAY COME TO THIS BLOG MY FAVORITE PUBLIC TRANSIT ROUTES AND STATIONS. THAT IS THE NAME OF IT, FAVORITE PUBLIC TRANSIT ROUTES/STATIONS. I CHOSE TO SUBMIT THIS YELP BLING TO MY BLOG FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE, BUT AS MUCH AS I AM ON YELP, THIS BLING IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AT ANY TIME. LOL. ENJOY.

Favorite Public Transit Routes/Stations

What's this?

August 31. 2007 FIGHT NIGHT!!!

8/31/07 THIS WAS ONE WILD NIGHT ON PUBLIC TRANSIT HERE IN CHICAGO. I'M GLAD THAT I RETURNED HOME UNSCATHED AND IN ONE PIECE.

SB Green Line train. I am riding to Ashland/63rd to go to my home on 69th Street after checking out the Cobra Lounge rock club in the Near West Side neighborhood. It has been a quiet, calm ride from Ashland/Lake to Halsted, but as the train is approaching the Halsted stop, a fight between two pre-teen boys breaks out on board. One of them, runs off the train with the other right behind him, falling onto the station platform, and the fight continues from there. One of them somehow throws a Ziploc bag containing something wrapped in white paper back onto the train. Passengers, me excluded, watch the fight, and even the train driver stops to watch the fight! When the fight ends, he closes the doors and then the train pulls off to Ashland/63rd.

LATER
SB #9 Ashland bus I am about to board this bus which I found sitting at the Green Line stop to get to 69th Street and home, but an obese man who was already on board and was put off by the driver for punching someone on the bus, gets back on the bus and punches the driver! Drama goes on once more! As passengers intervene to make him stop being so violent, an empty wheelchair goes flying out the rear door of the bus and lands upright onto the ground! The man who started all of the mayhem gets off the bus and leaves the vicinity, but the driver tells everyone that the bus isn't going anywhere because he has to call the police.

A woman on board the bus says to another that she just got off a Red Line train in which six teens got into a hysterical fight on board. I surely was jubilant when another #9 Ashland bu arrived. I returned home safe and sound, and in one piece, unscathed, after all of the Friday night madness.

July 27th, 2007 Pink Line Rumble

7/27/07 WB Pink Line train. I am riding to the end of the line to get to the SuperTarget in west suburban Broadview. It is a peaceful, pleasant ride that I am enjoying. I am sitting on the left side with the rays of the sun shining down on me, and on the right side, virtually across from me is a teen boy. Two guys, one another teen, the other looking to be in his early 20s, board the train at California. They look at the teen boy sitting across from me and call him names. He flashes a gang sign at them and then they jump him and a fight breaks out between all three guys! Me and three other passengers jump off the train at Central Park as the fight continues. Train departs the station and the fight still persists.

Ironically, two weeks before this happened, I had a dream in which someone tried to bust open sliding doors because of a fight. The doors of the cars on the Pink Line slide, a fight occurred on the Pink Line, and frightened passengers tried to pry open the nearest doors before the train came to a complete stop at Central Park. That happened after we all spot something shiny in the second teen's pants pocket. I could not tell if it was a gun or a knife. I wasn't going to stick around to tell what it was and neither were any of the other innocent passengers.

May 2007 Bad Day to Be A 352 Bus Driver

THIS IS SAD. CURRENT AND FORMER BUS DRIVERS OF THE WORLD, FEEL FREE TO SYMPATHIZE WITH THE TWO AFFECTED IN THIS BLOG POST.

FIRST INCIDENT
NB 352: The #352 Pace bus always goes into the 95th terminal through the west end and then turns around to pick up passengers and exit through the east end of the terminal. Today, the driver entered the terminal through the west end, not dropping off passengers, but making his way to the other side of the terminal to drop them off, going at top speed of five miles per hour the whole time. You guessed it, or maybe not, almost everyone on the bus, save about five people including me, got mad and started fussing at the bus driver. His explanation was,

"I cannot go about five miles per hour in these terminals. It's in the rule book!"

Despite his explanation, people still get mad and fuss at him. One angry black woman gets his badge number so she can report him to the bus company. If I had the opportunity to do so, I would've freakin' punched her teeth out! Yes, I have much more sympathy for the bus driver than I do for a bunch of impatient, stupid fools, which is 100% sympathy to 0% sympathy.

LATER THAT DAY
SB 352. Everyone is boarding at the 95th Red Line terminal. A young boy boards before his mother does and proceeds to the back. The bus driver sees him, and when I board she asks me,

"Is that your child?"
"No, I have no kids."

The boy's mother boards about 30 seconds afterward, and then the bus driver tells her when she grabs him and brings him towards the front of the bus that if he is seven or older, she needs to pay for him. The woman angrily shouts,

"How you gon' tell me how old my child is?"

The bus driver ended the argument and went about her business.

Later on, the driver misses a passenger's stop by approximately 50 feet. I've seen this guy several times before, always looking like Farmer Brown, wearing blue denim overalls and a tan/beige shirt. Well, Farmer Brown fusses at the driver for driving fast and missing his stop by so small of an area measurement, shouting,

"What is yo' damn problem? This ain't the Express bus! Crazy bitch!"

I felt bad for the bus driver, so much that when we go to Chicago Heights Terminal, I looked over at her and said to her,

"Sorry that you had such a bad day."
"It's all right," she told me. "This happens to me often."

I'm not sure how she felt about the unnecessary incidents after going home, but the incidents made me so pissed off that I angrily said to a group of teens on my street in south suburban Lynwood who wanted to get to know me,

"Do I know you?"

The Pace #352 bus is the LONE reason behind me being so happy that I no longer live in the south suburban territory that it serves. Good riddance to all of that mess!

May 2007 Comedy Central on the 352

5/07 SB #352 Pace bus. As usual on Sunday afternoons, this bus is usually crowded, hard to find a seat. You're lucky to find an open seat. Standing up near the front of the bus is a young couple, the guy with his arms wrapped around his chick, taking up room. Also on board is a heavyset, black chick with her hair dyed red. Before she boarded the bus, at the 95th Red Line station, she sat on the sidewalk there, half of her fanny completely visible to all who passed her by. Well, she looks in my direction and starts cracking up! I hear her doing so as I'm reading a book checked out earlier that day from Harold Washington Library, but I ignore her. I also ignore the lovebirds who eventually sit in the aisle-facing seat across from the one I'm sitting in, by putting the book to my forehead.

Every 10 seconds or so after she stops, this crazy wench starts cracking up again! She does it until she gets off at the end of the line, Chicago Heights Terminal. I never suspected she was laughing at me until a bald man residing in Ford Heights told me, after we exited the 352, that he thought she was laughing at me. Hey, if she was laughing at me I surely didn't notice, and I surely didn't care either. The book was what got and kept my attention.

April 2007: Watch Your Mouth Around The Elderly!

SB #352 Pace bus: I am riding back to Chicago Heights Terminal from spending the Saturday afternoon at Harold Washington Library. On board is a short, elderly, Caucasian lady who usually boards the 352 NB not too far north of the terminal. She usually carries a large metal cart with her. Today, she lied on the row of priority seating on the left side of the bus and placed her cart next to it. I was towards the back of the bus, but even further back were some teens, five of them, who attend Bloom High School in Chicago Heights. The bus was virtually empty, something highly unusual for the 352 on a Spring Saturday afternoon, just me, the elderly lady, and the five teens at the back of the bus.
Oh my gosh! Every 10 seconds, one of them dropped a swear word or two, but nothing was worse than what a boy in the group said to another boy in the group to get a confirmation from him about something he said regarding a girl's private area.

"You said that her koochy wrinkled?"

My thought was, "You all are so darn disrespectful of this elderly woman! I'm sure that she hears all of this!"

Nevertheless, the woman made no physical or oral reactions to the teens' filthy mouths.

July 2004-Red Line Red Hots

HERE ARE TWO WILD INCIDENTS THAT OCCURRED ON THE CTA RED LINE BACK IN 2004:

SB Red Line: I am on a train riding to 95th to attend the 6:00 p.m. service at Trinity United Church of Christ. I am in the third car, out of eight. As I am looking out the window, checking out the ongoing Dan Ryan reconstruction, I notice several people getting up and going to the adjacent cars. I did not know why they were doing this until I smelled one really bad flatus!

"Damnnnnnnn! Who did that?" I wondered.

I never spotted the culprit, but I spotted his/her victims.

SECOND INCIDENT THAT OCCURRED THAT MONTH ON THE RED LINE:

SB Red Line train: Once again, I am riding to 95th for Trinity's 6 p.m. service. There is extensive trackwork south of 47th, including single-tracking. Many people are on board and many of them are upset about a SB train being stopped to wait for a NB train to pass, and unfortunately, I am in a car with one seriously crazy ass woman. She pushes a button to talk to the conductor, fussing at him and cursing him out about the train being stopped for so long. He says,

"I can't proceed at this time. That'll cause a collision!"

Her response,

"FUCK A COLLISION! I NEED TO GET HOME TO SEE MY BABIES!!!"

I heard all of this and I'm thinking, "Now how the hell are you gonna see your kids if there's a collision? You'll see them while in the hospital or cemetery."

Yes, I was upset about the train being stopped for so long out of fear of being late for church service, but I didn't go anywhere near that extreme. The farthest I went was looking at the speeding Dan Ryan traffic in both directions, wishing that I was driving any one of those cars and trucks.

A Little Update

Until I get another transit pass, which will be some time later this month, I am going to submit blog posts surrounding things that I have seen or heard while riding public transit here in Chicago from past years.

I've been riding public transit alone since June 2004, and for some reason, I haven't seen or heard much weird stuff on public transit like I have from mid-2010 on up to now. Nevertheless, I have compiled a written list of things that have occurred from 2004 to May 2011 while I was on board a bus or train here in Chicago.

Hope you will enjoy the wildness that you are about to read over the next couple weeks or so. Thank you.

June 30th, 2011-Last Hours of 7-Day Transit Pass

6/30 WB #67 bus at 69th Red Line station. Heavyset, crazy, redheaded woman (her hair was dyed red) smokes a cigarette and then puts it out by sticking it onto the front of the bus three times before boarding. After getting on, she starts talking loudly to no one other than herself, causing several people, me included, to look over at her. Thankfully, she exits the bus at Aberdeen and sluggishly walks NB on Aberdeen...to the nuthouse.

LATER
IB/NB Red Line train. I am riding on my way to Harold Washington Library downtown to make a couple reservations at Legler Library on the west side of the city. I am towards the rear door of the seventh of eight cars, my desired position when going to HWL after getting on at 69th or whathaveyou, because the doors open right at the escalator to State Street going south.
When the train stops at Sox-35th, the doors open and on board steps the guy who calls himself the Ultimate Cubs Fan, Ronny "Woo-Woo" Wickers. I could easily tell it was him because he was dressed as a Cubs player when the team's at home (white uniform with blue pinstripes) and on the top of the back of his jersey was the name "Woo-Woo." He said, "Good morning" to me, and then proceeded to the right aisle-facing seat towards the front of the car where he sat. I periodically glanced over at him, smiling as I did so, catching him smiling throughout the ride to Jackson. Since he's the ultimate Cubs fan, I'm sure that he continued smiling, all the way to the ballpark.

AND LATER
Skokie Yellow Line stop: The place is getting packed, more and more by the second it seems, with Cubs fans heading to Wrigley Field to catch a game. I ride a train up here just to re-discover the obscure Yellow Line after leaving Harold Washington Library, choosing not to ride back on that same train because it got crowded in a hurry!
As I am walking to the platform to board the next train going to Howard, I see a sticker on a wall near the station attendant's booth. On top, in white caps surrounded by a pink background is

"Hola."

Below that, in lowercase pink letters surrounded by a white background are the the words

"Me llomo."

And below that, written in the white space, from someone using a black permanent marker is

"I secretly watch porn."

I just stand there, gaping in shock, at the sticker for like, about 20-something seconds before proceeding to the station platform.

AND LATER
IB/SB Red Line train at Howard. Those Cub fans from the Yellow Line have followed me onto the Red Line to continue their voyage to Wrigley Field. Also boarding is a guy in his late 40s or so with a friend of his. As soon as he does, he says to me, "Hi beautiful."
From Howard to Loyola, he flirts with me, completely ignoring the CZ engagement ring on my left hand. Then it gets worse. He asks me why am I fanning myself by using the Yellow and Purple Line schedules I received from the Skokie station. I tell him why, and then he starts blowing on my neck to cool me down, which really helps. I like it and then again, I DON'T like it!
He does not stop there, asking me questions such as "Do you have a man?" "Are you married?" "Where are you going?" "What kind of research are you doing at the library?"
And the wildest one,
"How long has it been?"
"Since what," I ask.
"Has it been months, weeks, days?"

I don't answer his question.
The train's doors open at Addison and he attempts to kiss me on the lips, but I stop him by saying, "Enough, enough!"
He finally submits, and gets off after saying to me, "Bye baby."

AND LATER ON
WB #63 bus. Bus gets crowded at 63rd Red Line stop mainly because of passengers avoiding crowded #63 bus one minute ahead. At Yale, a woman with a stroller and a pregnant woman board, and they stand next to me. The former does the right thing, taking her child out of the stroller and folding it, but what she does for the rest of the ride is not the right thing.
A woman across the aisle from us asks her if she wants to sit down. She angrily replies, "Naw I don't wanna sit down!"
The woman asks her if she'd like to put the baby, who's sleeping, in an empty seat adjacent to me. Her angry response is, "She doesn't wanna sit down!"
The same lady asks the pregnant woman if she wants to sit down and the woman with the stroller angrily says, "She doesn't wanna sit down!"
I'm thinking, "How dare you talk for someone else?"

The concerned woman exits at Lowe, the pregnant woman exits at Union, and when the bus hits Halsted, a wheelchair-dependent man boards. The woman with the stroller angrily says as she moves back to let him board,

"This is bullshit!"

After he boards, we are off again! The bus prepares to depart the Peoria stop and the man in the wheelchair says to the woman,
"Miss, do not lean on my chair."
"I'M NOT LEANIN' ON YO' FUCKIN' CHAIR! THAT WAS MY BAG," she angrily shouts at him.

The next stop, my stop, Morgan, finally comes, and I exit the bus, away from that hellraiser, thankfully. I just feel sorry for the others on the bus who had to tolerate her and her actions thereafter.