A Good Reason To Whine: Train-Delays and Insufferable Women…

Tuesday is NOT my regular blog-night (who blogs on a Tuesday?), but I’m fresh off the heels of some feisty rage, so something has to be said.

Today was a special day, where I was stuck on a 30-minute train-ride for TWO+  hours.  A special day indeed.

Now I don’t wanna get all “rant-like” on how much it sucked, or how an engine could just “die”, or how this ruined my whole evening, because granted, sometimes shit happens.  In situations like these, all you can really do is sit tight and make the best of it (what does “sit tight” mean? clench your bum cheeks? I’m not sure, but people always say “sit tight”…). 

Well I tried to make the best of it, but it didn’t exactly work out…

It all started off well enough; I was sitting on the train with my music full-blast; today’s playlist: 90’s love ballads.

About 5 minutes in, the dreaded conductor-man got on the speaker: “umm yeah…so the train in front of us stopped moving, so we’re gonna be sitting here for a LONG time…. haha suckas!”. 

I don’t like the conductor-man. He is a cold and sadistic man.  I’m not sure if the conductor-man has a family, but if he does, I will threaten their lives the next time I see him.

So the conductor’s announcement was followed by moans and groans (not the “sexy” kind, but the “how long’s it gonna be ’till I can put some meat loaf in my giant belly?” kind). 

We were all pissed. 

The best I could do was shrug my shoulders, and keep on listening to my 90’s love ballads. 

About 30 minutes passed, but the conductor-man (whose family I want to hurt) didn’t have a single update.

And then, a shocking thing happened: my iPod went dead.

What the hell?

I was SURE that when I’d checked the battery-gauge, there was a good 1/4 left.  I am under the suspicion that the LAST 1/4 of the battery does not last nearly as long as the FIRST 1/4….

Stupid iPod. 

As soon as my 90’s love ballads disappeared, I was much more aware of my surroundings; it was inescapable.

The most obvious thing I noticed were the 3 people sitting next to me.  They were all friends, it seemed, and they were having a lively conversation.  I should clarify that: by “they“, I mean that one person was having a lively conversation, while the other two were listening with child-like wonder. 

 What was all the fuss about?

I wasn’t sure, so I decided to listen-in.

In the next 5 minutes, I was exposed to an insufferable female creature…

She was the “me, me, me” type.  She had clearly mistaken herself for an A-list celebrity, and thus decided that every mundane detail in her life was a relevant topic for all.  It was like her very own segment of the Tonight Show With Jay Leno, ’cause no one kisses celebrity-ass and pretends to laugh at terrible jokes more than Jay Leno.

This chick seemed shifty-eyed as well; she must’ve been on the lookout for those sneaky paparazzi. 

 In the time that I was treated to her conversational talents, I learned the following:

-So she basically HAD to get a seperate text-message plan for her son, because “oh my god, can you believe he sends over 150 texts a month? He is SO popular!”

-She works at a really tall building downtown.  Everyone calls it the “pink building”, ’cause it looks pink.  Here’s the funny thing though: the building is technically made from “red marble”, but for some reason, the color never really stayed true to its name, because it looks all pink.  Isn’t that funny?

-She’s thinking of leaving the stranded train, and calling her husband to pick her up.  She actually knows this neighborhood really well, because her parents used to live here (she re-iterated this fact THREE times in the next 15 minutes)

-When she called her husband about the delay, he said he’d make some sort of chicken/pasta medley for dinner.  She seemed pretty happy about this.

-This one time, when the train was delayed for 5 hours, she averted the crisis, but ONLY because she had randomly decided to DRIVE to work that day.  She was saved by the grace of God, she said, because God cares more about her, than everyone else who was stuck on that train.

So yeah, this woman definitely believed she was rocking her Tonight Show segment…

As much as she thought she was a celebrity, she sure didn’t look like one.  In my kindest of descriptions, I can tell you the following: she had greasy/matted dirty-blonde hair, thick-framed eye glasses,  chapped lips, grimy fingernails, and 6 juicy stomach-rolls, cascading down her front like a luxury marble staircase .  Oh, and she was red-faced and sweaty, much like a pig in need of a cooling mud-bath. 

The more I listened to her, the more I wanted to put a bounty on her head. I thought about what it’d be like if she fell out of the train and broke her ribs (like if I pushed her).

What pissed me off the most was the reaction of her followers.  They ate up EVERY word she said; smiles and nods and chuckles up the waaazooo!  It was sickening.  One of the dudes had stars in his eyes everytime she spoke; I’m pretty sure he would have carried her on his back and taken her home, if only she had asked.

This repulsive behavior kind of got me thinking: where have all our standards gone, when it comes to acceptable conversation?  I mean people are always worried that kids don’t read enough books, but how do kids fair in the conversation department? If the parents are any indication, it’s all going downhill.  If we’re not going to live up to our “conversation-potential”, I suggest we all go back to being monkeys…

 As I was starting to come to this  scary conclusion, I realized that I’d been on the train for an hour and a half.

 I also realized that I had to go pee.

 There was only one bathroom in our train car,  and a tiny one at that.

Normally I would have succumbed to the “public train bathroom” allure, but in this case, I had seen EIGHT people use it in the last 3o minutes. 

Right then and there, I decided to avoid the piss.  I may not have had a logical reason to hold it in, but I figured THIS:  if 8 people’s airborne bum-germs had been in that room for the last 30 minutes, most of those bum-germs were still alive.  I just couldn’t bear the thought of bum-germs attaching themselves to my germ-free hot body.  No, I’d rather kill my kidneys.

So for the next 30 minutes, I tried not to think about booze and/or rivers. 

A short time later, the train started moving, and we were off on our merry ol’ way.   A few people sighed, a few people cheered, but most people started making-out.  There was no one close enough in my make-out range, so I started making-out with my hand (I don’t have a boyfriend, so don’t worry, I’m allowed).

I finally arrived home at about 8:30pm.  It was just enough time to wash-up, eat dinner, and slowly get ready for bed; kinda like I never left work at all!

It’s times like these that I’ m tempted to eat a 3-tiered cake right before falling asleep.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.