Subway Shenanigans '08 Kickoff

What you are about to read actually happened to me last Friday. Many of you all know that I don't post on Fridays, so I decided to save this story for today.

Here goes:

Many of you know that over the summer I take the subway to work and since I began that ritual (last summer '07), I put myself in a position to witness (and become victim to) a lot of pretty damn unusual goings on around me. Friday, however, was significantly different for me.

So last Friday, on my way to the subway, I stopped at McDonald's to grab breakfast. I had began to get a tad light-headed and decided to grab something before anything happened*. When I get down to the subway, my train was JUST pulling off. I run to it, hit the door a bit, and hop on. The cart was surprisingly empty, which is hella unusual because the subway, especially in the mornings, is routinely packed—not crowded, but definitely packed. I pay no mind though; I'm tryin to get to work.. The subway is just a seven minute ride. Nothing major.

There's a man standing on my side of the subway who looks at me. I look at him too to get a glance at my surroundings. We smile at each other and kinda chuckle a bit because I had very seriously almost missed the train.

I sit down and look up at the route posted atop the subway door. He sits diagonally across from me. The whole interaction was pretty damn plain, unreportable, normal.

Then this fool starts staring at me.**

And I knew it! I knew it because I had a burning sensation on my face as if his eyes were piercing a hole in my skin, causing my skin to sort of itch a little.

You know how when someone is staring at you, you don't act impulsively at first? You just kinda casually look at them and think to yourself, "why are you staring?"? That was my initial reaction.

Ok wait. Lemme back up just a second. I know some of y'all will probably throw a stranger a mean mug followed by a helping of "what the bleep are you looking at?" but I don't really work that way around folk I don't know, especially folk I don't know on the subway. I can't play that "Mal don't play that" role with everyone.

Ok so back to the story…

So I look back at dude quickly and see he's looking at me. I proceed to look at the route that was posted atop the subway door and keep my eyes facing forward.

Then……*shudders*…

The staring got on my nerves and started to anger me. I was about to throw the mean mug until I looked in his direction. And looked down.

Dude was massaging (not beating) but groping and massaging his um…testicles right.in.front.of.me.

I swear I couldn't make this up even if I tried.

I instantly felt violated. I mean it was bad enough that he had been looking at me like a home-cooked meal he probably hadn't had in ages but this?! Ugh! I felt like he was undressing me with his eyes and using me as his stimulant.

That was it. For real.

I got up out of my seat and sat on another portion of the subway. The rest of the ride seemed to never end! Damn crazies!!!!!

Any other time that I see something weird on the subway, it's mainly involving harmless crackheads and schizophrenics. I've seen schizophrenics talking to themselves at a subway stop on a house phone that needs to be plugged into a wall and going to town on the phone as if they are talking to someone on the other end—abbreviated and seemingly interrupted convos—the whole nine. I've seen a crackhead/schizophrenic person on the subway yelling in an extremely angry and loud tone to his reflection he saw in the subway window because he was angry at said "person", ordering "him" to get his ass off the train and cussing "him" out profusely. And I've seen schizophrenics walking around the subway stop talking to their hand.

All of these incidences are pretty harmless. Hilarious (especially the argument on the subway; that was funny for real), but harmless.

Before Friday, I had never felt so invaded, so exposed. That shyt felt like rape with my clothes on. I've never been a victim to rape but that feeling did not feel nice AT ALL!!! One of the co-workers said that she thinks she may have cussed him out if she was in my shoes. And believe me—this most definitely passed my mind. However, I paused on it because this man was obviously crazy. Crazy folk are like dogs. You make a too sudden movement in front of them and they come at you ten-fold. No, thanks! When I told the co-worker why I didn't snap and get out of my body as I was so prone to do, she understood, "you're right. You never know who you jump bad with. And in Chicago, you can't do it with just any ol' body."

But for the day, this incident had me shook. As a result, I REFUSED to take the subway home on Friday. I caught a ride home.

For some reason when I got to work I felt dirty. Like I needed to wash, scrub, and cleanse myself into oblivion. Ugh!

When I shared this story with others, they had the same sentiment, "gotta love the CTA! But that was weird as hell though"

All I can say is, "I know, right? Ugh. I am so offended!"

This was a sign for me that the summer is vastly approaching. When the summer comes, weird things begin to pop. Anyone from Chicago knows this is true. It's like we get a little sun out and people start to show their personality like they show their skin more in warmer weather. It's warm, so they gotta show their asses….in every sense of the word. It's ridiculous!

*-I have hypoglycemia. Skippng breakfast is not an option. There are serious consequences and on this day my blood sugar had gotten a little low.

**-Staring at me is one of my HUGE pet peeves. It's quite seriously the easiest way to make me mad nervous. I hate it, hate it, HATE IT!!!