The irate mutterer
The southbound Red Line is stopped at Wilson. There's a slight delay -- maybe 30 to 45 seconds.
A guy behind me starts his agitated mutterings: "Close the door! What the fuck! Get this fucking train moving!"
We pull out a few seconds later. Then the train stops abruptly just south of Wilson:
"Unbelievable! Come on! What the fuck! Un-fucking believable! It's a quarter till fuckin 8! Fuck it! Let's go! Get the fuck moving conductor!
Of course, you otherwise can hear a pin drop in the car. No one moves, or makes a sound.
Thankfully, the train DOES finally move. And we come upon the bucolic scene of the Graceland Cemetery, and a dog fetching a ball in the grassy patch between the cemetery and El tracks, providing quite the contrast to his simmering anger.
It sounds like this guy might be better off driving to work -- then he could yell at people to his heart's content, without the social ostracism.
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | May 23, 2006 at 10:06 AM
I'll bet he was doing it so he didn't have to share his seat.
Posted by: Cheryl | May 23, 2006 at 04:25 PM
I feel like this on the Metra a lot, but I keep it to myself, you know?
Posted by: Eric | May 23, 2006 at 08:29 PM
Sometimes I think "f***" is the most-used word in public on the CTA. It gets really depressing to hear it all the time.
This is why when my mother visits, we take cabs. Well, that and the lack of escalators at key stops, and the filth, and...
Posted by: Scott | May 24, 2006 at 07:33 AM
Take a cab! What the fuck!? Buy a fucking car! Can't you leave the fucking house earlier!? It's not everyone else's fucking fault you're late! Fuck! Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. Fuck.
Posted by: Thomas Westgard | May 24, 2006 at 09:45 AM
I've certainly uttered a few choice words, especially since it takes longer to get from Granville to Lake Street on the redline than it does to fly to fucking Detroit.
The CTA should be barred from calling itself *rapid* transit.
Posted by: deepkid | May 25, 2006 at 12:43 AM
Deepkid has me laughing so hard. Ain't it the truth. I'm not sure if it's still there but it used to say something like "28 minutes to the loop" outside the Morse station...gimme me a break! I ride that damn thing everyday and it probably takes 28 minutes just to get to Wilson some days...28 minutes my fucking ass!
Posted by: LadyDay | May 25, 2006 at 08:22 AM
deepkid and LadyDay are 100% right--and that mutterer sounds like it could have been me. The Red Line is abysmal. An absolute disgrace of a "rapid" transit system in the 3rd largest city of the richest nation on earth. And I'm gonna keep on muttering until the north branch of the Red Line doesn't have almost HALF of the total mileage of slow zones of the entire CTA rail system, or a string of decrepit, filthy, unsafe stations.
Muttering in disgust on its own isn't very productive, but I also write my elected officials and report problems to the CTA. If all of us citizens did the same, we might actually see some changes. (Of course, we'd probably be better represented under something more closely resembling a representative democracy, rather than the hereditary cronyism we currently enjoy in the Land of Lincoln.)
Posted by: Chicago Jason | May 25, 2006 at 11:59 AM
Well, if i have my way soon, I'll be using the south branch of the redline again. With a good pair of noise-cancelling earphones, I could truly fly to the loop in about 24 minutes or less even at the end of the line.
Posted by: deepkid | May 25, 2006 at 04:12 PM
I'll bet he was doing it so he didn't have to share his seat.
Posted by: Oscar Schindler | June 06, 2006 at 10:02 PM
I'll bet he was doing it so he didn't have to share his seat.
Posted by: Oscar Schindler | June 06, 2006 at 10:02 PM