CTA Tattler

My favorite item brought on the 'El wasn't anything all that strange, but everything around it was. I was on the Brown Line, around 2pm, when a student from CHIC (Culinary and Hospitality Institute of Chicago) gets on the train and sits down. He is still decked out in his cooking outfit and he pulls out a huge carving knife. He then pulls out his sharpening "sword", and with his arms raised above his head, makes a huge show of sharpening his knife. What was hilarious was the fact that the more that people were ignoring him, the louder and faster his sharpening got. Of course, this was several years ago, before 9/11, but it was still amazing that no one paid any attention to this crazy chef-in-training as he sharpened his knives on the train.

Take care and have a great day....

ciao,
john.

On an late evening, northbound Purple Line train, a couple of months back, a man got on at Howard sporting what looked like (no, it was) a coffe table. It was a small coffee table, by regular standards. But it was big enough to block three-fourths of the doorway.

Interestingly enough, he placed in it a doorway that was (to be) the door that aligns with one of the exits on the Main St. stop. How far do you think he had to carry that thing?

I work night in the city. I take the Red line from Addison to Lake. This past weekend I get off work, hopped back on the red line at Lake. The "L" pulls out of the Chicago Stop, a attractive 20's something girl walks on. (Hammared out of her mind) She goes to the back of the train and lifts up her skirt goes #1 right there on the train! I avoided the urine as the train started and stoped agian...

Can you say Brazilian wax?

Embarrassment:

Last spring I hurried home on a rainy day. I could hear the train roaring into the station as I descended the many stairs to the North & Clybourn El platform. Panicked at the possibility of just missing the train (Isn't that frustrating?) I race towards it as the doors are closing. I manage to stick my umbrella into the door just in time, but in my haste, I slip on the wet pavement and fall flat on my stomach with my arm sliding between the blue rubber portion of the platform and the menacing steel of the train. I look up, frozen in embarrassnment as the doors open up and a gaggle of faces are looking down at me in horror. Who knows how long I would have lain there if I hadn't been spurred into action by the pointing and shrieking woman waiting on the southbound train.
That was embarrassment.

Would not have believed this unless I saw it myself...Late one night riding the Red Line North toward the Addison stop with a few girlfriends, a man boards the train carrying a cross. Huge wooden cross. And carrying it over his shoulder ala 'The Passion.' Crazy, right? I thought so too, but the fact that he was dressed like Jesus (long hair, sandals and all) almost made it seem a bit more normal. Kind of...

Got on the Loop-bound Brown Line at Merchandise Mart tonight at about 8:20. A man who may have been homeless (simply based on his association with someone who appeared to be a bag lady) was carrying a 16-inch television. Not well, either, since he tried to get up and nearly crashed into the opposite wall of the car. I got off at Quincy, so unfortunately I didn't see where he was going.

Last week, I probably fell into this category... I was deathly ill with some sort of bug on Friday, and was shuttling some (non-hazardous) biological samples between Northwestern and Loyola in a marked container. I was tired and sick looking and I didn't tape the styrofoam container together that well, so I don't know if anyone thought I was a terrorist...