It gets crowded on my morning train-- I work from 9 to 5 and then I take another home again. . . .
Sorry, Sheena Easton flashback. So it’s crowded and I say “Excuse me” to this man who has his briefcase on the seat next to him. He moves it and when I sit down, spreads his legs really, reeeaaalllly wide, shoves his shoulder underneath mine and proceeds to poke me in my ribs with his elbow. This did not dislodge me, so he opens up his Times and starts flipping the pages in front of my face.
I wait. The ticket taker comes to collect the tickets and I ask her very politely “Excuse me miss, but did he pay two fares? No? I was just wondering because he seems to have this overwhelming need to sit on top of me and I thought that maybe I was taking up his space somehow.”
The ticket taker just laughs and asks another rider to please put his stuff in the overhead rack and invites me to sit in that seat. So I do.
Meanwhile, Two-Seat Harry, having never said a word, is sitting all by his lonesome. You’d think he’d be happy, but no. His stop comes, he gets up and FARTS as he passes me. I am not shitting you, but it sure as hell smelled like he shitted himself. The whole train car starts looking around wondering where the stench is coming from. There is no bathroom in this car. People are actually looking around and asking aloud-- what is that?
I feel obliged to tell them. “That guy right there just farted. No, not the one who looks homeless-- the one in the blue suit. Yeah him. Smells like he shit his pants, don’t it?”
Now there are people standing around him with their shirts pulled up over their noses (I’m not kidding or exaggerating-- the stench was unbelievable). Noxious Fumes Two-Seat Harry leaves the train without ever saying one word.
Nice Russian Guy who takes the same morning train as I do everyday laughs and tells me “You funny, but not too nice!” Nope, I’m just a commuter and I wanna be an jerk like the other ones is all.
BigGirl, you should have lit a match. The other passengers would have thanked you. That and hhopefully the one leaving would have left with a <Bang!>. :eek:
Okay, so the next time the whole “should we have mass transit in the KC area” topic comes up again, I’m going to actively and enthusiastically push for a metro-wide “H-E-L-L NO!” And I’ll do so by showing them this thread.
Because I fart. And I don’ wanna mess with da’ likes of a pissed-off Biggirl.
Great story, but actually Biggirl is talking about one of our commuter rail systems, not the subway. Although the story would fit there, too, except for the fact the conductor never leaves this little booth halfway through the train and therefore the briefcase would have stayed put and had a better ride than our heroine.
I had a woman wedge herself into an empty seat between me and this fat guy on the subway last week and then whine at me when I tried to turn the pages of my newspaper. I already had one shoulder against the wall and the other scrunched as far over as I could.
Maybe the guy knew his innards were rumbling, and figured he would have to pass gas before his exit. Maybe he was just trying to create a little space around him to minimize the number of people who were offended.
Reminds me of the dude I saw on the bus yesterday. For whatever reason, he opted to stand but felt that his tote bag needed to have a seat! He wasn’t the only one standing, either. Some commuters are weird!
At this one didn’t let go with a fart, wet or otherwise.
Come to think of it, that dude did finally sit down next to his bag as soon one of the seats next to it opened up. I wonder what was in that bag to warrant it getting a seat before its owner did.
I was once riding one of the transit buses at Disney World that takes you back and forth from the farthest hotels to the parks. It was late, the parks had closed, and we were one of the last groups out. As we were getting closer to our destination (the last), a teeaged boy was standing in the stairwell, obviously ready to bolt as soon as the doors opened.
Right about the same time, a noxious odor started seeping through the bus - noxious, much akin to the above. Everyone looked at my two-year-old nephew, but we checked - no diaper change needed. You could tell as it spread from the back of the bus to the front as people would react. People started getting quite vocal about it, and my brother-in-law kept saying, “It’s not mine!” People were disgusted, but also laughing, assuming it was a baby.
Then it dawned on me that the teenaged boy wasn’t laughing.
Poor kid must have had a colitis attack or something similar, and it wasn’t until the very end that everyone else started to realize. That poor kid was trying so hard to turn invisible, and at the same time was obviously having a serious personal emergency. I sure hope he had a change of shorts…
It was actually kind of sad. On the plus side, as people realized it, no one made any comments to him - they realized he was as embarassed as a human being can get.
I used to ride NJT, and have my fair share of horror stories. Yay for the Q train to Brooklyn