Adventures on the CTA: Winter Edition

It is not yet 9 yet I am already bored out of my fucking mind at work. Now if only doing work might aleviate such boredom, I would be ok. Unfortunately this is not the way this trend is progressing. Thus, in an effort to uphold one of my New Year's resolutions, I will attempt to write my first blog entry. Dun dun dun..... Here goes nothing!

Adventures on the CTA: Winter Edition

Yesterday two occurences on mass transit managed to surprise me. I like to think that having grown up in Chicago and never possessing a vehicle has increased my amount of exposure and experience with the CTA relative to other people. Alas, something new.
Scene: I get off the Blue Line on the Western stop. I use my iphone for its main purpose - ctabustracker.com and learn that my connection Western bus is 3 mins away (!). This means I have to hustle up the ramp past multitudes of people before I dash across 4 lanes of traffic. Alas, people ahead of me are slowing down, and therefore slowing me down. As I get closer to the exit I see the cause/culprit. A homeless man has prostrated himself, Jesus-style on the floor by one of the turnstiles. Since there are only two, the CTA employee is hustling people through the gate. I attempt to go through the other turnstile next to homeless Jesus (what, he looks harmless), yet am yelled at by the opeator to go through the gate. In the end I make it to my stop and bus on time but I wonder if CTA operator handbooks handle cases such as these. Will she attempt to make him get up? If so, how? Questions without answers.

The second occurrence, what else, occurred later in the evening after I was coming back from seeing Frost/Nixon at Webster Place on the Ashland bus. Now mind you 1. it was snowing 2. I have a dastardly low cold threshold and 3. I had to wait 9 minutes. So I bundled up. Poofy coat, pants fashionably tucked into my boots to protect from the snow on the ground, a hat with a bill that dangerously limits my vision yet looks good on me so what can you do, and a scarf tied ninja-style on my face. I guess perhaps my eyes were visible but only from the viewpoint close to the ground, like a child or a dog. So I get on my bus, headphones muted so I could hear it my card didn't scan. It didn't. So I scanned it again as I heard the bus driver saying something. This time it scanned fine. Finally she speaks louder and is like "Maam, I'm going to have to see your face for at least a little bit". That's a new one. Taken completely aback, I lower my scarf, she says thank you and I sit down, verlempt in realizing I was mistook for a potential terrorist. I guess in the CTA operator handbook there has to be a section about being able to provide a physical description of potentially dangerous passengers.

MMM, public transit