Train Jerk

When you take public transportation, you live by a set of unspoken rules. And sometimes these rules are spoken and written down, but people try and pretend like they're not real rules.

For example, an unwritten rule is that everyone is quiet on the way home. I had some friends get spooked out by this eery silence. The fact is, most people zone out, read, sleep, listen to music. For 30+ minutes, you can just chill out before you get home. The written rules are less eery: don't talk loud on your cellphone, don't block the doors, don't leave your humongous rolling suitcase in the aisle. Blah Blah.

One rule people try to forget is that on a crowded rush hour train, you will be sitting next to someone. In only the rarest cases will someone not notice the empty seat next to you. This leads me to another Metra Tails train story courtesy of Matt.

Recently on his commute home, he made one of the rush hour trains with just under a minute to spare. As he was running alongside the train he spotted an empty seat on an otherwise full train car. He boards the train and heads for that seat. The current occupier looks up and says, "No way." And then proceeds to ignore Matt while talking on the phone. Now Matt could've taken this opportunity to be an equal jerk and shove the guy's bag over and squeeze himself down, but he didn't. He just stood there and stared at the guy, who said again that he wouldn't let Matt sit there. When Matt said, "If you have two tickets you can have these two seats," the guy just answered back, "Oh you just didn't say that." More standing and staring.

Finally the guy lets Matt sit there and he tells his friend on the phone about the "jerk" he has to sit next to and how he's going to talk loud on his cellphone (another rule no-no) the entire ride just to annoy him.

But he didn't talk the entire time, because the slug fell asleep. And Matt made sure to get his million dollar shot before he got off.

Sweet revenge.