Sucker

I know I've expressed Pissed Offeyness galore on this site about commuting in Chicago. In recent months it has gotten better by leaps and bounds due to moving basically downtown. It was easy to walk the 17 blocks to work. But now that winter has become a permanent annoyance it isn't an option at the mo. Brutal Bastard that he is.

So I'm back on the public transport. And have discovered that the nearest train is the most inconvienant subway spot in the city. By the time it reaches me the carriages are crammed to capacity with bulging bodies. Sometimes a leg is caught in the doors as they try to slam shut. I see people straining against each other and trying to maintain some respectability at the same time. Which never happens, by the way. Usually a hand gets pushed onto a boob, or a nose gets stuck in a smelly armpit. Once, I was squeezed up next to a weirdo who kept smiling as my hip thumped against him whilst the train jerked along. Ew.

In the mornings, I'll race along to the subway then wait with heaps of yuppified-to-fuck people in the dingy 1970s rat-infested cave they call a station for a train. One comes. Too many people. 10 out of 150 can get on. Wait again. Another train. Excitement builds as one thinks they might be able to push on (decency is totally abandoned). Nope. Haha, sucker. You suck. Haha, think you live so close to work! Haha, it takes the same amount of time to get there as it did when you lived 45 minutes north. Shove that in your snobby Gold Coast face.

Another train. I AM GETTING ON THIS ONE. It's the 3rd bloody train and I. Am. Getting. On. It. I see a woman lurking near me and I can tell she's going to try to have a go at boarding but she has just arrived and I have been WAITING so she's definitely getting an elbow in the face if she moves in on my turf.

Lights are coming, train is slowing, please let the doors stop in front of me, please, please, I pray. They stop, I walk along an inch or two to be directly in front and then before the sneaky lurker (who is basically kicking the back of my knees in) does anything I launch myself into the sea of people and hope for the best. I close my eyes and grope around for a pole to steady myself. Opening an eye, I see a wall of annoyance and hatred from my fellow commuters. God, we're horrible to each other.

At the next stop, some get off and the rest of us can sort of breathe. Then more and more at the next. This is why my subway location is the absolute worst in the city. Not far enough out to actually get a spot and not south enough for people to have alighted. I feel like a complete sucker.