Gorging with the Gorditas!

As many of you know who have ever had the misfortune of sitting around the Gorditas well knows, two things are omni-present... Food, and the man-talk. Its always interesting to see 3 or 4 fat girls talking about men, wondering why they are having man problems, meanwhile stuffing their faces with bags off food that seemingly appear out of no where, and disappear into the great lard-open. Yesterday Part-Time Rider had the misfortune of drawing the short pixie-stick and being stuck with sitting with them. During the short time she was over there at least three distinct different types of candies were passed around, including fruit slices and atomic fireballs being positively identified. Now I like to snack on the train, but I also don't resemble Jabba the Hut and then wonder aloud why no one responds to my ads on internet dating sites either...

Muggle Ticker--->20

In the better late than never category... I give you the story of the last muggle ran off by our faithful crew, well at least by me.

This woman was one of those Muggles who feels that a rough day of shopping in the city entitled her and her Marshall Fields shopping back to an entire four seater to herself. Well Nerd and I sat with her, and you could tell she was visibly upset from the get go. I even asked if I could put her back up on the rack, and instead she said "no" and kept it on her lap. The woman tried to take up as much of the legroom as possible, so I made sure to knock knees with her every chance I got, and then I learned on accident how to really annoy her... One of the activities that is acceptable on the South Shore is do puzzles quietly, and our commuter crew is big fans of Sudoku's. I was working diligently on mine, leaning forward to invade the perceived personal space of our invading Muggle. While working on the puzzle, sometimes I tap my pencil mindlessly, and one of the times I did it, I accidently tapped her bag. The overreaction of regathering in her bag and glaring at me was all I needed to know that I successfully touched the Muggle's nerve. Even after Nerd deserted me, I made sure to occasionally brush up against her bag as I was getting comfortable, and finally right after Gary, the woman left in a huff, and moved up another car forward.

The Muggle Ticker now stands at 20.

Running into a train, and other stupid things to do as a delivery driver

From the News-Disgrace

A Cintas delivery truck and South Shore train collided at 10:17 a.m. Monday near 11th and Pine streets. Steps to the train were damaged, but no one was injured. Service was delayed by 13 minutes. A westbound train, however, was delayed by 30 minutes. Colin May/The News-Dispatch

Clip show time!!!

When there is complete and utter lack of entertainment on the train, that can only mean one thing... CLIP SHOW TIME!!!

Here are all of the updates for those of you who have been wondering

-The Muggle Ticker sits at 19 after Jay Fox's flight from the seats earlier this week.

-The latest search engine hits include "Bill O'Dea Chicago", "graphs on people who are out in the sun and get cancer from it" and "Ott-Haverstock"

-The Gorditas are still fat and annoying, and eating everything in sight.

-The Freak of the Weak is a toss up between two sets of Muggles, one was a father and daughter with 6 pieces of luggage who were determined to keep a four seater for themselves and the grouchy old lady who was determined to take it from them. Many dirty looks and mutterings took place, but nothing entertaining happened.

-Chad has moved on to better things, taking care of the 3rd and 4th cars on the 4:01 train. All though they trust him to do his work, evidently he isn't important enough to have an offical South Shore shirt or hat, but I will say, his mom definately irons his plain white shirt up nicely.

Crazy like a Jay Fox

I will have to admit that yesterday brought me one of the more entertaining characters I have sat next to in a while on the South Shore in a while. Yesterday we met

Jay Fox
8 South Michigan Avenue Suite 2008
Chicago IL

I know this because Jay was so kind as to leave us all of his architecture magazines after he had read and mangled them. Jay was definately the moody sort who was definately not ready to sit in adjoining four seaters with 6 dedicated commuters and friends of PWP. Jay was visibly annoyed when his ploy to keep the four seater to himself failed miserably, even after he spread his stuff out over three seats, and trying to straddle more room than his skinny ass needed. Jay pulled out all of the stops to try to get rid of Nerd and I who had the fortune of sharing the four seater with him, along with a no-named commuter who exited at an early stop. After Old Hippie left the seats at his stop, and Nerd moved over with the rest of the clan, I stayed and stretched out a little bit, with Jay katty corner from me, and determined to get rid of me as well. Jay pulled out all of the stops, stretching out again as far as he could, flipping through his trade magazines and newspapers as loud as he could, slamming his newspapers down on the seat as loud as he could etc.

Well of course you know, this means war!

I definately had to make sure the conversations on our part stayed loud and animated, even managing to knock knees with him, while not even acknowleding his presence. As soon as he got the cellphone out, I made sure that the crude comments and vulagarities flowed freely, as did the boisterous laughter and insults. Finally before Ogden Dunes, Jay gave up and became the 19th victim of the Muggle Ticker, leaving his mess of newspapers and magazines behind. Now you may wonder how we got to know Jay so well, and the answer is for an architect, Jay is a real idiot. Remember all of those magazines he left behind? Yeah they all had his name and work address on them. I was even so kind as to take one of them, take the address label off of it, and leave a note for the South Shore cleaning crew, that the mess was left courtesy of Jay, and put the note into the areas for public notices.

Ah, Jay, we hardly knew ye.

PWP, meet Chad

So there aren't many things that bring cheer to the commuters on the South Shore, especially in these days of overcrowding and seat stealing Gorditas. But recently we were blessed with the good fortune to have Our Ex-Favorite Conductor training an FNG to work as a collector on the South Shore.

Our Newbie was named Chad, and as the nice commuters that we are, we made sure that he got some real on the job training that he could use. Mostly it consisted of abusing Chad, and asking a bunch of stupid questions... Here are some examples...

-Asked for a one way ticket to Randolph Street... When the train was headed the other way.

-Asked him to roll down the windows to cool off the train, when all windows are sealed shut.

-Always made sure to shout out random numbers as he was walking by trying to count up the number of passengers in his cars.

-Asked at every single stop which doors would be letting passengers off, even the ones that were only pick up stops, and the stops when none of us were getting off.