I recently moved to Wheaton IL, in order to take a job in downtown Chicago. I did this for a variety of reasons, a few of which are as follows: 1.) I was tired of being unemployed; 2.) I thought that being close to Chicago would be beneficial to my long term career goals; and 3.) I thought I might run into Derrick Rose and at the very least become good enough friends to eventually live with him and get paid a friend salary.
Number one has been accomplished (though now I miss the nothingness that was my unemployment), two is in progress, and I am cautiously optimistic about the chances of number three coming to fruition.
Since I have now been residing in this northern portion of the great state of Illinois for a little over a month now, I have collected quite a few insights on my “new” life. Here’s one:
As a suburb dweller I have had to adjust to a new form of travel, that being the frequent use of public transportation. In particular I’ve had to get used to the Metra train line; which for those who have never spent time in this area, is the most popular form of transportation from the
various suburbs surrounding Chicago into the city itself. Every weekday I get on the train at 6:52 AM to head into the city and then get back on the train to return home at 5:30 PM.
During these commutes I have become accustomed to the laws and etiquette of the rail, and I have come to respect them. Unfortunately, not everyone feels the same way I do. Working around the basic framework of railway-law; that you should never acknowledge your neighbors unless they drop something or need you to get up so that they may disembark the train, and if you happen to fall asleep you had better be able to exert full control over your body and the sounds and smells that it emits, I have been able to put together my own little sociological profiles of the various other Metra customers. Or at least that’s what I tell myself so that I don’t feel terrible about judging people on a daily basis.
Normal People
These people make up the vast majority of train-riders and of course, include me. They get on the train after a long day of work wanting nothing more than to be left alone and to relax a bit. Ideally they would never have to ride the train, ever, in a perfect world. They use four socially acceptable and proven forms of entertainment to pass time: cell phones, iPods, books and handheld video game systems. Oddly enough I have only seen a few people with the latter, but despite its low usage rates I still stand by it.
Slightly-More Technologically Advanced Normal People
These people sit there with their iPad’s, e-readers and what-not’s. Is there anything wrong with this? No, but they stand to be cemented into your memory in one of two ways. Either you’ll remember that guy who sat next to you with the iPad as a smart, early adopter of the technology that now (in the future) is so commonly used, or as the guy that spent waaaaaayyy too much money for a technology that never really took hold. Like a irtual Boy, those HD discs that weren’t Blu-ray or jet packs.
Slightly Irritating People
Cell phone talkers mainly. There is nothing worse than sitting next to someone who is so completely ignorant of other human’s existence. The rest of us are just trying to pretend like we’re all not their together, these people don’t have to; for them we don’t exist at all. It’s insulting.
They also tend to be heavy breathers and adjusters, but more on that later.
Stare-r’s (People Who Stare)
I feel bad for this caste mostly because it’s not really their fault. At the end of every train car there are these two seats which face each other, so basically no matter what at least one person is staring back at a car of faces. When you’re positioned like that you can’t help but stare at other people.
I do not feel bad for this one lizard man, however, who sat there and stared at me for the entire ride and didn’t even attempt to make any pretence of looking away when I would send him that “What are you doing dude?” look. He also looked like a lizard.
New People
At least once every day I hear someone ask “Wait, does this train go to (blank)?” I understand why they pose the question, and there’s nothing wrong with seeking some clarification as to be sure that they won’t end up 30 miles away from their home, but there ARE signs in front of every train that say where we are going.
Old Men
They breathe heavy, lean forward so that they are obnoxiously close to the back of my head, and read newspapers (what?!), leaning them forward so that they jut into the back of my head and force me to sit far too upright for my lacking. There are a couple old ladies who do the same thing but they don’t breathe funny so I don’t really mind.
Old Men Who See It as a Badge of Honor That They Were Never Able to Get a Job Outside of Chicago and Have Spent a Ridiculous Amount of Their Lives Riding the Train
One time I was kicked off the train. Well, everyone on the train was kicked off due to some equipment failure. So we’re all standing there, muttering under our breaths whether or not this was due to a terrorists threat (it was the day after Bin Laden was killed) when this old man starts semi-bragging about how he’s been riding the train for 40 years and how this has never happened to him before. He then went on to say something along the lines of “I’m good friends with the old head of the trains and let me tell you what, this came straight out of Chicago. We’ll be waiting here for at LEAST an hour.”
Five minutes later we were all back on a train.
Sidebar: This same old man walked up to a middle-eastern-looking-man when we were first kicked off and asked “What did you do?” I’m pretty sure that he was just making a bad joke without any regard for who he was saying it too, but the guy he said it too was clearly contemplating whether or not the old man deserved to be dropped. It was tense.
Drunks
The worst of the worst. I’m pretty sure that it would be pretty fun to ride the train back home after a Saturday night of drinking with friends in downtown Chicago, but I am also pretty sure that it is also pretty obnoxious to be drunk on the 5 PM train on a Wednesday.
Sit down, shut up, and let me read in peace.
