That roughly translates to punctuality outage for everyone, and also, common courtesy and normal behavior outage for CTA-riders at the same time, as I discovered yesterday morning. With a single running track, half the amount of trains come to pick people up, and naturally their patience begins to wear thin. Still, even in my compassion for others as I shared their plight, I found myself agape with wonder by the things that people let themselves do, even in the face of such an annoyance.
After waiting for 3 jam-packed trains to pass me by I was set to be 15 minutes late for work. As the 4th train pulls up, I steel myself and jackhammer down into the tiniest of cart spaces, like Kirstie Allie at Great America on the Demon. The huge backpack in front of me is resisting my entrance, I can tell. As I force myself further still (literally centimeters at a time), the doors threaten to shut and precisely bisect off the left half of my body. I perform a quick ”Twista.” That is to say, I contort my body and dive, imagining myself in an Olympic luge on the superspiral toilet flush chute. It works, and I successfully become wedged between the smeared glass wall and backpack boy. An angry, so angry, midgetesque curly haired girl is in front of me, glaring holes into my abdominal region. Approximately 3 random arms criss cross my field of vision.
My phone vibrates in my bag. Curly Furious Sue’s eyes become slits as she manages to singe my bag with her eyes, the rage of 1000 suns firing out of control at the nerve of the audacious vibration. We stop at Damen. I twist my head, resembling the Exorcist, to see who else thinks they can get on. A large, flowered, and certainly purposeful woman makes a meaningful lean. There is no way.
“There is NO – – WAY!” shrieks Red, the one who owns the freckled arm that is under my chin.
“There ees… No way…” states nearby Mercedes gravely, shaking her head as slow as a slow clap.
Mercedes has nice glasses and more space than any of us on the other side of the wall. If her and Midget Fury could shift a bit, the Backpack would probably be inducing far less pressure onto my rib cage. But no one cares about that, as I had the nerve to shove my way on like I did. I had the unauthorized balls to get on the train for work like everyone else this fateful morning, Jeez forbid!
Flowered Giant speaks, in response to the conductor’s repeated explanation announcement: “Yeah, tell that to my boss. Hmmph.”
Flowered Giant suddenly becomes Flowered Oprah. Damn straight Flowered Oprah, we have to get to work just like Midget Fury and Backpack Boy and Mercedes! What makes them so elite! Thank god you said something because I have not your collossal fortitude and so may well have been Backpacked right out, or burned to a cinder had I uttered my same feelings!
My phone vibrates again. MF glares again, with even more hatred than before. But I am bolstered by Flowered Oprah’s statement of rightousness, so I do not look at Fury in fear this time. Instead I check my watch with insolence, and see her jet of murderous flames only through my peripheral vision.
A man wedges on at Division. The doors close on him once, twice, thrice. He is tall. He is unfazed. He shrugs nonchalantly at me over the heads of Red and Midget Fury and everyone else as he’s finally on safely, and having delayed our journey a full 30 seconds by his bravely endured thomping.
When we finally all exit at the Clark/Lake mecca, I lose all control and sprint ahead of everyone to the escalator, swerving rudely between the unsympathetic and irritated crowd, though they like me are only concerned with their own inherent tardiness and recently violated personal space. Although I am now sweating, and the people behind me’s loud foot stomps tell me I could move aside and let the speedier pass me by, I intend to get to the revolving doors first and I will.
And I did.
Then I took a cab to work from there saving myself 7 minutes and arriving only 18 minutes late instead of 25, which would have been far, far worse.
So damn you Midget Fury and your Satanic glare, and damn you Backpack Boy and your razor sharp baggage, and damn you Mercedes and your stately dictatorship! And damn you Red and your shrill annoyingness! Flowered Oprah, you’re cool.
This has been a wildly un-PC depiction of just one of my many astounding trips on the El, where people continue to shock yet amuse me each and every day. Brought to you by the Kron herself.
Resolutions ‘09
January 5, 2009 by skobergSo I’ve been putting off making any real resolutions at all thus far. The reason is that I feel I am condemning anything I resolve out loud to epic failure, sheerly by the fact that if spoken out loud, it becomes a New Year’s Resolution. And I know damn well how those have ended up in the past. For instance, one year I resolved to be nice to everyone. HAHA!! HAHAHAHA!! HAHAHA!! Oh…
So anyway, here is my wishlist of potential resolutions:
1 – Lose weight & tone up (I never said these were going to be unique)
2- Work on finding a grad school - and a grad school program for that matter! I.e. Visit some schools!
3 – Work on my creative writing
4- Get a side job with a publication
5- Decide where my personal life is going… (this was left vague intentionally… rest assured I know what it means in my head)
But I won’t resolve to do any of those yet. Making them a resolution means I can shunt them aside, because that’s what everyone else does and then we can all talk about it together and feel better about ourselves because we’re not the only ones who failed. We must not succumb to this mentality of sheep! Is there any other way I can accomplish my big life’s to do list aside from RESOLVING to?
I’m thinking along the lines of doing Weight Watchers for the first time (hey shut up, Fergie did it too! True story). You know, where you trick yourself into losing weight because you don’t know the program well enough to cheat it yet? Which reminds me, does anyone know how to do the new Momentum program and can teach it to me so I don’t have to pay $40 a month to make up for my lack of willpower and self-discipline?
Oh yeah #6 on my list of NOT resolutions – Develop some semblance of will power and self-discipline…
Happy New Year guys! Great to be back in the office. Really. I’ll be here. All. Day. Every. Day.
Let’s do Happy Hour on Friday. (Internal Resolution #1 – Look forward to things more often! Possibly by posting in the form of “Notes” on Facebook).
Oh and if any of you did go ahead and make a resolution or two… share it with us here in the form of a COMMENT! COMMENTS are welcome. RESOLVE (or not) to make more comments on the Crummity .
Just do it.
Tags: attempt!, commitment, epic failure, new year's resolutions
Posted in Life Commentary, life | 1 Comment »