Come all Muggles Young and Old!!!

Lately they have been moving us into only 4 cars for the journey past Gary, when they used to give us 6 cars to spread out through. It seems the muggle population has been on the downswing ever since school got back into session. Usually this repreave lasts until Thanksgivingish, when, much like the swallows of Capastrano, the annual return of the muggles to the shopping malls occurs. Well it turns out Monday was a day of quality, not quantity when it came to our muggles.

We moved up a couple of cars from our usual seats to avoid getting cut off in Gary. As we settled into our seats, I sat across from two old ladies, and across the aisle from a mom, kid and another female relative. Within seconds of sitting down, the train makes a sidetrack switch, the train then lurches sideways, and the 4ish year old kid promptly takes a header into the floor. (I gave it a 7.8 out of 10. Personally, I thought it was a nice manuver, but there was no blood, so that is an instant deduction) The kid looks up at her mom with the widest eyes, not knowing whether to be hurt or not. The mom looks down at the kid, then quickly at all of the eyes staring at the little daredevil, before announcing to everyone.

"Oh She's all right"

Then instantly the tear factory opened up for business, as the kid let out a wail that would scare a gordita away from a free chocolate buffet.

And to my delight, that was only the beginning...

Remember the old ladies? Well lets just say that watching the paint try would have been a step up from their conversations. The one right across from me was obviously the boss of the two, as she talked about 95% of the time, all except for the 5 % of the time that the other one was agreeing with her. The wimpy one was actually the funniest looking, having the ultrahigh magnification glasses, that looked remarkably like seeing into a microscope. Anyways, here are some coversation samples.

"Well my right arm is feeling better than it did on Friday. It really hurt on Friday, then felt a little better on Saturday, then it felt a little better on Sunday, and it feels a little better today."

Damn I wonder how that arm felt on Tuesday, or maybe even [gasp]Wednesday

"Wow a woman conductor, you don't see that everyday. Ooh and she seems like she knows what she is doing"

Gee Wally, how is the Beaver anyway?

"Oh shoot I missed the name on the sign going into the last stop. I wish the train wouldn't go so fast, so that I can read the signs. Now I have no idea where I am"

OK, that's just too easy, I have pride you know...

Quiet Old Lady "Do you have a bump like this?"

Blathering Old Lady "Here let me feel that... Oh that's arthritis, I have that too, here feel this. Yeah when you get to be ancient like I am, you have all kinds of problems"

And being able to diagnose medical problems, sure doesn't seem to be one of those problems. Maybe we can put her to work to save our medical system? Think about how much money we could save without doctors???

It was about at that point, that I had to get up and leave. I guess score one for the muggles to get me to leave. Oye ve.

Mmmmm Beer...

Well there aren't many redeeming qualities about being a South Shore commuter. The train is dirty, it smells funny, muggles get in the way, gorditas clog the aisles, the seats are uncomfortable... I could keep going, but frankly unless you are dense, you get the picture.

Anyways, one of my personal favorite traditions on the South Shore is Beer Friday's. The original crowd I used to sit with used to do themes were they would bring beer from certian countries to fit holiday's and/or moods. The crowd I sit with now, does keep Beer Friday's sacred, as do many of the regular commuters. This Friday was no different as High Maintence, Nerd, and myself partook in the ritual drinking of the beer. The 2nd best part of Beer Friday's (besides the beer of course) are the topics that get talked about. Friday we managed to have a religious arguement over homosexuality AND abortion, along with talk about the latest in reality TV. Too bad everyday can't be Beer Friday...

On the UP tick!

Well yesterday gave us a little bit of action. We actually had a 5 seater day yesterday, and almost had a guest sit with us. Me, HighMaintence, and PartTimeRider sat down as usual, except we were joined on the end by a muggle. He sat for about a minute, that is until heard HM say "Wait until Nerd gets here". For whatever reason, that scared the dude off like a Cubs fan in a topless bar. So the muggle ticker moves up to 5.

Also on the search front, we had two more search engines hit on PWP because of our aisle clogging pals, the Gorditas. That makes it 7 hits out of the 10 for the gravity defying fatties, from the MSN search engine... Now this begs the question, who do you have to suffocate to get on Google?

Search ticker

Well since the Muggle ticker has gone cold lately at 4, I need something else to keep my interest. Last night I came up with the search ticker. This will track all of the ways that people find PWP through search engines, because frankly some of them are pretty damned funny.

As I posted earlier most of the hits come from people who either click through on a feedburner at Soxtalk.com, click on my blogger profile, or have the site bookmarked. Now some people have found Purgatory through plugging something into their MSN search engine. My wasteband challenged friends, the Gorditas, have been responsible for the most searches hitting here. 5 different searchs on "Gorditas" have landed an unsuspecting Taco Bell craver smack in the middle of fat people panting on the stairwell. One search result was from "grosser than gross", which is another result of the bowling ball shaped commuters. The most flattering search result was from "funniest commuter stories" where someone had linked up one of my stories as being fairly entertaining. The last result came from "lactivists", the anytime-anyplace, breast feeders.

So the total so far is 8 search hits, with the leader being the Gorditas by far. In the meantime, the purgatory will be open for business, and will be interpretted through the eyes of your faithful reporter, me.

American Idol Chit-Chat

It has been quiet lately for the most part on the old South Shore train. The closest thing to interesting stuff was the end of last week when all of the American Idol muggles crowded on to try out for their chance at stardom. They were all so cute in their special little costumes, and that dreamy look in their eyes. I only wish I could have been their to watch them get ripped by the judges. Most didn't say much, but of course there were the dopey few who didn't realize that it was 4 o'clock in the morning, and that means to sit down and STFU.

My favorite Idolee wasn't met on the train, but rather standing by herself in front of the Sears Tower, all alone, at 5:45 in the AM. She had on her cute little had, and snappy little outfit, to go along with a suitcase, all to charm my hero Simon Cowell. As I was walking past her, she mustered up the courage to speak to a complete stranger in big city.

Idolette "Excuse me, could you tell me where "Lake Shore" is?"

Me-"You mean Lake Shore Drive?"

Idolette "Yeah"

Me- "Its a mile and a half that way" (points toward the big assed lake that dominates the eastern horizion)

I guess I am just an old softy.

3 Gorditias and a Polka-Playing midget

Things have been slow around PWP lately, what with the Muggles back to work, and the mugglelitos back in school. I was all set to write a fluffer piece today about the latest key word search on MSN that found PWP being "lactivists", but that all changed this morning.

I stood up to get into line to get off of my morning train, right about at my usual place. When I looked into the vestibule today, a wonderous sight shown down on me. There were the usual 3 gorditas cramming themselves in there, trying to be the first one off of the train, but tucked nicely into the drivers window was a short little dude with a headset on. The guy was about 5'2" tops, and that was if he had 6 inch heels on. Anyway, when I opened the door to the vestibule, I was struck by the unmistakable sound of polka music screaming out of his headset. Then I was struck by the irony. All of the gorditas who annoy everyone else by getting in everyone else's way to be the first off of the train, were stuck in a closed area, with polka music blaring loudly out of a near-midgets headset. Now this is one time I enjoyed volume theory in action, and I hope to see it again on a daily basis.

Two blonds walk into a vestibule...

So I don't know if the gods are punishing me, or just giving me good writing material, but I swear since I started this blog, I keep running into more and more morons on a twice daily basis.

Today I had the "pleasure" of running into the Blondsie twins. Some sampling of their conversations included the following..

"Man, girl you are an accident prone wreck"

"yeah, like last week a bit my lip really, really, really hard, you might even still be able to see it? (shows inner lip) And then so I kept biting it, and biting it, and biting it, and biting it, and it hurt sooooooooo bad.

So I guess biting your lip repeatedly hurts? Who knew?

"yeah so my car wouldn't start yesterday, so I called Jeff to come get me. So he comes down and tries to jump it but it still won't start. And well I waited like two hours for him to get there because the people at Jeff's work don't like him, because they know me, and so they gave him bad directions and he got lost. So anyway then I called Victor and he told me that it was the power steering pump that was going on. So he followed me home, and as we were driving home, the temperature gauge starting going up like really fast so I stopped, and Victor said it was because of the power steering pump. So we left the car and he took me home instead."

"what's a power steering pump"

"well when it doesn't work, it causes the engine to overheat"

Damn, I better get the power steering pump on my car checked out that sounds kinda scary.

And finally

"wow we are about to get trampled by all of these people trying to get off the train."

"damn all of these people are getting off of the train?"

Nope, people just get on the train, never off of it. Welcome to the South Shore California.

Cold Turkey

In reality, there aren't many things that piss me off more that an idiot waking me up on the 5 am train. (there are Cubs fans, but that is a totally different story) My theory is that it is 5 o'clock in the morning, even if you aren't going to sleep, sit down and STFU so that the other 90% of us can sleep. You would be shocked to learn how many people can't even handle that bit of basic courtesy.

Lately there has been a guy who has taken to sitting in the backseats of my car, either next to me, or across the aisle from me. This guy has to be a crack addict going through an AM withdrawl. He cannot sit still to save his life, he is constantly shifting, twitching, and moving around. He is on the cell-phone, on the blackberry, and just generally yelling at the poor people who work for him. He also likes to read the newspaper, rustling it as loud as humanly possible with every turn of the page. I have no idea if the guy is ADHD, or what, but he needs to be strapped down like they do to people in the ER with spinal injuries. Hopefully the guy goes back to sitting whereever he came from before, or moves up another car and sits with the gorditas.

Happy Muggle Day!!!

OK you have the following situation...

-Crying Baby
-Kids using the seats as jungle gyms
-Gorditas standing in the aisles
-Someone saying "I shouldn't have to pay if I have to stand"
-A woman spending 15 minutes in the bathroom
-People stopping in the doorway to stand, when there are still people trying to get on the train, blocking everyone else from entering.
-Some stinky fat guys standing next to you
-Every seat taken, but muggles shoving through the SRO people in search of 4 seats together.

It must be a holiday train home! I swear it is as predictable as the tides, you will always have a solid mix of the above traits on the Friday before a holiday weekend. Lucky me, I got all of them in one day.

$215 doesn't seem so bad anymore

As many of the readers know, the first of the month is the time when you have to pay for your pass to ride the train for the next next month. Way back when gas was $1.50 a gallon, it seemed like a whole lot of money to spend $215 for a month's worth of train rides from Michigan City to Chicago. Now that gas is at least $3.19 a gallon, it seems pretty reasonable all of the sudden.

I was thinking about it, and to commute today, would take almost a second mortgage. I live about 60 miles away from where I work. Our new car gets about 30 miles to the gallon of gas, so that would make 4 gallons to go there and back. Today that would cost $13 alone. That isn't counting tolls if you take the Skyway of $6.60 for both ways, and the $15-20 cost of parking in most areas of the city. It could cost right about $40 to drive into the city for a day of work now. If you figure doing that about 20 times during a month, you are looking at about $800 in cost as a commuter.

I never though I would look at the South Shore as a good thing, but wow, dispite the muggles, it is a deal right now to ride the train. Not to mention you all would get to meet cool people like me ;)

(now where is my paycheck for being the PR director at NICTD???)