CTA Tattler

Avoid eye contact at all costs!

The train platform is packed when you arrive there. You know it’s going to be one of those rides home.

Somehow you do manage to get on the first train that comes because the doors open in your face. The car is packed to the gills. You struggle to find a spot to stand and 4 vacant inches on the pole for your outstretched arm.

Your face is about 12 inches from your neighbor, closer than you may even sit next to your significant other on the couch watching TV. Within the “vestibule” of the two doors -- about 36 square feet - there are at least 20 people. That’s less than 2 square feet of living space for each person.

What to do? I offer The CTA Crowded Train Rules of Etiquette:

Rule No. 1. Avoid eye contact at all costs.

Rule No. 2. Do not touch the hand of another passenger as they are desperately trying to cling to the pole as you are.

Rule No. 3. At the next stop, do not move to let others off, lest you lose your highly sought-after 2 square feet.

What you can do:

1. Read the ads.

2. Look intently at the back of the head mere inches away.

3. Catalog the details of the collective wrists / arms / shoulders around you.

In this endeavor I saw:

** A woman with a three-inch scar on her wrist.

** A lady with a funny-looking mole on her arm (better get that looked at, honey).

** A man with a rectangular birthmark on his bicep.

** Five different-colored bra straps peeking out of spaghetti strap tops (light blue, green. light yellow, white and black).

I also noticed that I won the “hairiest arm award.”

Thanks, Dad.

Duelling Purple Line wierdos

Intrepid CTA Tattler reporter Gladys found some Best Cellers and plenty of Oddness on the Purple Line this week.

Well, OK, she's not a CTA Tattler reporter, but just like yours truly, she whipped out her notebook and dutifully recorded some strange cell conversations and general oddness.

Her story is a little long, but worth it. Here's a celler snatch to get you to go over there to read it:

"Well, I mean, SERIOUSLY, I mean, as the fifth child in the family I'm sure he didn't get his share of maternal affection...."

And then there's the guy who tries to sell her a hip-hop CD for $5.

Go on, get over there and read Glady's adventure.

And keep up the great work, Gladys.

No smoking, please

This Tattler tale comes from a work colleague. (Thanks Tanya.)

She boarded at Loyola on the Red Line at about 7:30 a.m. The car contained about 10 women, and the distinct, permeating smell of marijuana smoke.

She soon determined the culprit was a guy holed up in the "cubbyhole seat" where the conductor would work. Two women sat in the seat behind him on the other side of the window.

The women were asking him to leave the train. He was pretty much unresponsive. Stoned, you might say, and still smoking.

By the time the train got to the next stop, the women were physically giving him the heave-ho, hands under each arm like some bouncers at a nightclub. Stoner guy put up no fight and soon found himself out on the platform watching the train go by.

Wow! Strength in numbers, eh?

Today, just one minute...

On Monday, I reported how it takes just two minutes to really throw the train schedule off whack during rush hour.

Today I gratefully experienced the reverse. The Red Line train had just pulled out as I climbed the steps to the platform. I got to the top and did the standard "platform lean" (where you bend over the edge to scout for the next train), and lo and behold, one was just down the track.

So I boarded one minute after the last one had left. The result was a relaxing, uneventful, uncrowded ride to the Loop.

And there was still a seat on my car at North and Clybourn! I'll bet that shocked a few riders boarding there.

Two fisted celler, gangbanger

Seen on the Red Line heading north:

A woman brandishing a cell phone in each hand, feverishly massaging both keypads. I appears she had just bought a new phone and was copying saved numbers into the new one. Too bad there's no better way to copy them electronically.

Meanwhile, her seatmate was listening intently to his loud headphones, and practicing flashing gang signs. They weren't aimed at anyone in particular. Practice makes perfect, you know.

Talk about odd seatmates.

Just two minutes

That's all it takes to throw train schedules off whack.

Going south on the Red Line in the morning, trains arrive every 4-5 minutes. This morning there was about a two minute delay.

As a result, people were standing in the aisles by Bryn Mawr (usually it's not till Wilson or Sheridan).

Two minutes, and your quality of CTA life all goes to hell.

Not very tourist friendly

I feel bad for tourists or others dragging those huge wheelie suitcases from the airport on the trains.

How the hell are you supposed to get out of the exits with those things?

Grand Avenue on the Red Line is a big stop for tourists because of the Michigan Avenue hotels. And there's no elevator there. So first they have to drag them up 38 steps. (I counted.)

Then they have to figure out where to exit.

And how to exit.

They come up to the turnstyle level, gawking, trying to get their bearing and desperately looking for the inadequate directional signs.

Then they try goosing themselves and the huge bag through the ancient, creeking, steel revolving cage.

And they then have to climb another 34 steps to the street level.

Let's hope the promised Grand station rehab includes better signs on where you are and where to go, and better ways for everyone to egress.

Kids on board

People like to see kids on a train. It makes them smile.

By kids, I mean toddlers or infants. They stop being cute for a living after about 5 years old.

It's mostly moms with kids, but in the last week or so I've seen two dads. One was playing peek-a-boo with his son, and soon had nearby passengers joining in the game.

Friday I saw the same woman-with-daughter-in-stroller both going to and coming from work.

Do you think she's a creature of habit?

Clueless Cub fans

You can never write too much about Cub fans.

Whether it’s a day game (off rush hour) or a night game (argh!), here are some constants you can count on at the Grand Red Line stop:

1. They will be swarming around the transit card machine. At Grand that means you have to snake your way to the turnstile through the Dazed and Confused. And they’re not even drunk yet.
2. When you finally make your way to the platform, there’s a huge knot of blue-and-white-clad Cub fans choking the entrance. Of Course, they don’t know there are eight cars on a train and they stay there in one place. They won’t get a seat.
3. When they do actually get on a train, they don’t know they must hold on lest they fall. After three stumbles into your lap or shoulder, they might get the idea.

Singin’ da blues for pink-tights teen

Scene: No. 8 Halsted bus, going north at 18th Street. A young white girl, maybe 14-15, saunters aboard. Every passenger – about 8-10 African-American guys of various ages – eyeballs this girl.

After all, she’s wearing black high-top Converses, pink, fishnet tights, a black-and-white vertical-striped miniskirt, a black-and-white vertical-striped top, a black sweater atop it. She has short, stylized purple hair with red and yellow plastic barrettes. She’s wearing a headband with Ren and Stimpy characters dancing on it. She’s carrying a beaded yellow purse sporting “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” in red beading.

She sits across from an overweight, ashy, bloated, 60-ish man holding a guitar on his lap.

“What’s yer name hon?”

“Moira.”

He starts picking his guitar, singing in a deep, cracking, bluesy voice:

“Ohhhhhhhh, Moira. She’s got purple hair, and pink legs, but you see, and she don’t care, coz she’s Moira. And she’s pretty and cute. And she’s Moira.”

“Awww man, no one’s ever told me I was pretty before besides my mom.”

The driver chimes in: “Oh don’t worry honey, he says that to every lady who gets on.”

By the time Fullerton rolled around, all the guys on the train were singing B.B. King’s “The Thrill is Gone.”

But it wasn’t for Moira.