Thank you Santa for less-crowded trains

As slow as the train has been lately, I do appreciate that many people seem to be taking some extra time off around the holidays, so the trains haven't been as crowded as normal. I found this picture online and it made me think of the red line at its worst...

Click here for photo credits

Sloooooow movin'

Anyone else feel like the train has been slower than it needs to be on a daily basis recently? It should take about 15 minutes to get from Wollaston to South Station in the morning, but lately it's been taking 20+ minutes due to slow moving and lots of annoying stops that make people fall over.

C'mon, Red Line! Where is your Christmas spirit? GET MOVING!!

Sniffle, snort, sniffle, snort

WTF is up with people incessantly sniffling their snots? Get a tissue!

As you can tell, I forgot my headphones this morning so I had the pleasure of listening to lots of sniffles and snorts and annoying loud people having insipid conversations. And of course since it was raining, the train took forever and was overly crowded and stopped just outside the JFK station just for the hell of it.

Ugggggg.... so not looking forward to the ride home.

Top 10 things about the red line that I didn't miss when I drove into work today

I was just grabbing a fresh glass of water at the office when I remembered that I don't have to take the T home tonight. I drove into work. Rejoice!

For the sake of brevity (and sanity), I will keep this Top 10 list to just 10, and it is focused primarily on the typical red line experiences that happen in colder weather.


10. Loud teenagers yelling politically incorrect words and phrases and cussing at eachother with no regard for the smaller, impressionable children around them.

9. Getting kicked by some nasty little kid in a stroller with his dirty little boots and his clueless, strung out teen mom does nothing about it. (Sidenote -- man oh man, could I go ON about strollers on the T!!!)

8. The nauseating odor of big old puffy winter jackets that have been in storage and never cleaned and absolutely reek of ashtrays, mothballs and sh*t.

7. Getting bumped into repeatedly by a strange old lady who refuses to budge even just 2 inches into the huge amount of space on her other side while I'm squeezed between her and a bunch of loud teenage whores.

6. Getting breathed on by a tall man with liquor breath.

5. Standing in an unknown sticky substance and then obsessing about the kinds of filth that are sticking to me.

4. Freaking out because of a fellow rider with what sounds like whooping cough and does absolutely nothing to cover her mouth and the cough gets louder and more phlegmy each time.

3. Having to cover my nose because of the intolerable odor from those pink grocery bags from Chinatown filled with god knows what kind of rotting produce and fish.

2. Adult men with long fingernails that have black filth caked under the tips.

1. Dry-heaving over curry farts.

Wow -- that was too easy to write and I keep thinking of more!!

Poop

I wish I'd noticed that chunk of poop on the floor in the train this morning before I stepped in it.

Spooky presence on the Red Line...

I'm sorry it's been so long since I posted. Unfortunately for me, my prolonged absence from this blog had nothing to do with a reduced amount of time taking the red line. A new job has made me very busy and my commute shorter, but that doesn't mean that the red line isn't haunting me every day.

This morning, keeping in the Halloween theme, I was spooked to see a frighteningly large crowd of ghouls and zombies (a.k.a. regular red line riders) standing at the haunted Wollaston platform this morning. Of course the hell train that pulled up was full of scary souls blocking the doors and refusing to stand in the center of the train. I immediately noticed a spine-chilling presence of curry, and as soon as the door closed, a terrifying cloud of rotting corpse diarrhea fart possessed the entire train.

Just another day.

Yelling at idiots

Sometimes I just have to put rude people in their place.

Last night on my way home on the red line, the train was packed and I was standing, holding onto one of the infested poles to steady myself. At JFK a woman squoze on next to me and proceeded to place her hand on the pole about 5 inches above mine, and letting her full plastic grocery bag that was dangling from her wrist knock my hand completely off the pole. I looked at her and said, "why thank you, am I still in your way?" No response from her. I grabbed onto the pole above her and dangled my bag in her face. She didn't seem to mind.

Seven minutes later we got to the N. Quincy station and as the doors closed and we departed the station, the small filthy man who had been sitting in front of me stood up and I think said, "excuse me". I replied with, "can't you wait until the train stops? there's nowhere to move." He didn't even look at or acknowledge me and likely didnt speak English anyway, so he just stood there with his filthy self right in my face. I should have just let loose and really yelled at him since it appeared he had no idea what I was saying anyway. I didn't budge an inch for him. 2 minutes later we arrive at Wollaston and boy is he anxious to make sure he gets off the train. Naturally, in a huff, I whip my bag into him and block him as I very slowly made my way off the train.

Don't mess with me, people.