Rollin' a smoke and swappin' tall tales
I board the Red Line headed south at 7:30 am and hear the cacophony as soon as the door opens.
The scene: One 40-ish woman is rolling a cigarette on her RedEye. Across the aisle sits a Vietnam-vet-looking-guy in his mid-50s. He's got a scruffy beard and bad teeth. He's next to a barrel-shaped woman in her 50s with bad makeup.
The guy says: "So I made it to age 53 last Saturday. And I've already had a hip replacement. I have so many screws and plates in my body that I need a doctor's note to go anywhere near a metal detector.
"Hell, two Aprils ago the wind knocked me down. And I got hit in the head with a freakin' pipe!
"But hey, things have been going great since I got this job.
"Except for the days I go insane. "
Then they all get up and exit at Lawrence.
I have encountered this couple going southbound on the Red Line--must have been early July.
They were having the same exact conversation. I remember the guy saying he just turned 53, and the part about the wind knocking him down, and getting hit by the pipe.
Man, what a short-attention-span pair.
Posted by: ETS | September 26, 2006 at 02:30 PM
Years ago, I was on the LaSalle bus. A man and a woman were talking, and it quickly becomes clear that they knew each other from a psychiatric hospital.
The woman tells the man, "You know, sometimes I just want to kill someone. I mean really just strangle them dead."
After the man leaves the bus, the woman starts singing to herself, "I see angels dancing on the head of a pin." Needless to say, no one dared take a seat close to her.
Posted by: Vasyl | September 27, 2006 at 12:38 PM