September/October 2007: Pace Bus Insanity

NOTE: UNTIL I GET ANOTHER 7DAY CTA/PACE PASS AND METRA WEEKEND PASS, I WILL SUBMIT WILD STORIES OF THINGS THAT I HAVE SEEN WHEN RIDING THE BUSES AND TRAINS HERE IN THE CHICAGOLAND METROPOLITAN AREA FROM THE PAST. THE FOLLOWING STORIES, ARE JUST PLAIN OL' RIDICULOUS, BUT HILARIOUS. YEAH, I THINK THAT'S THE BEST WAY TO PUT IT.

SEPTEMBER 2007: SB #352 Pace bus. I am heading to school at South Suburban College, and I am taking the 352. I sit in the priority seating on that side of the bus where the driver's seat is located. A young, heavyset, black woman gets on board at the 95th Red Line terminal, and asks if this bus is going to 129th & Halsted. Bus driver tells her no, but she doesn't believe her, so she boards the bus and goes to the back of the bus.

When the bus gets on I-57 (this was the 352 Express bus, now gone sadly), I could hear the sounds of someone beating on something, and then, I look back and catch this crazy wench beating on the window! No one says anything to her for doing what she did. Then, as the bus goes over the Cal-Sag Channel, a large, wide river cutting through the near south suburbs, she comes down from the back and sits on the row of priority seating where I am, and "jams" to music on her CD player, singing and dancing wildly, bouncing up and down, causing me to instantaneously jump up from lying on a large metal part next to the seating where I was resting my head.

I get off at Harvey Transportation Center to transfer to an EB #364 to SSC, and so does she. I go inside a store at the terminal and so does she, but instead of shopping, she stands around for a few minutes and asks people which bus will take her to 129th & Halsted. Then, she exits the store and asks more people which bus will take her there, even after getting the correct answers. I overhear one man say,

"They need to make a medication that will really bring people back to reality."

In regards to both the crazy woman and what he said, hey, they need to make a pill that'll cause her tom make the wise and right decision to admit herself into an insane asylum.

OCTOBER 2007: WB #364 Pace bus: I am on my way home from South Suburban College, riding to Harvey Transportation Center, to switch over to the #349 Pace bus to 79th/Western. Since I attend school only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I usually get on a WB 364 arriving at SSC right after my last class ends, which was around 1:00p.m., and every time just about, I get the same driver-some fat-headed, light-skinned, short-curly-haired, middle-aged, dude with a deep voice and a nasty attitude. To get into HTC, the 364 turns off of 155th Street, and as he turns off that street and snails towards the section of the HTC where WB 364 buses stop, a tall, skinny, fair-skinned chick, who stands up without holding onto something, gets mad and says to him,

"I oughta sue yo' ass fo' drivin' so fast up in here!"
"Hold on then, and you wouldn't have to worry about being tossed around," he says to her.
"Naw, I don't hafta hold on! Watch how you drivin'!"
"Regina (obviously he knows her), I can't control gravity!"
"Yes, you can, you fat-faced bastard!"
"Nappy-headed ho."
"Plate of rotten greens and cornbread wit shit on the side."

My only thought was,

"Now why is all of this swearing going on when there are little children on the bus?"

Yes, there was a cute little blue-eyed girl, about three years of age, in a seat across the aisle from where I was sitting, and I was sitting near the front door where all the "action" occurred. She was with her mother, who did nothing, but laugh at the outrageous antics of those two. I didn't find it funny, because I found it to be corrupting the ears of that poor little innocent girl! >(