Writer's Block: Public Transit Nightmare

[thebitterguy]

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Ohhh, Good question. For me, it was sitting in the back of the bus with my then girlfriend, terrified, as a demo team leader of my acquaintance had what can only be described as some kind of psychotic episode at the front of the bus.

He was hollering and screaming and bellowing at the bus driver, who was incredibly professional (a lesser human being might have told him to stow the passive aggressive bullshit, but he was made of sterner stuff).

At the end of the trip, I approaced the driver to ask what had happened, and apparently the DTL in question was going to be late for a movie. A shitty movie at that, the Keanu/Pacino one where he's a lawyer and he's the devil.

Perhaps, of course, leaving earlier might have avoided that problem. Or getting a prescription for anti-psychotic medication.

Perhaps.

Comments

Someone lost their shit over The Devil's Advocate?

[caias.livejournal.com]

I mean, if it were Showgirls or Dragon Wars, I'd understand...

:)

I was riding the 1 & 9 train uptown in NYC when someone started preaching. Loudly. In our face. And we can't leave. Dave Fooden started heckling her like she was a bad stand-up act. She had no idea how to respond...

Crazy Lady: "There's a treasure in your heart, everyone's heart."
Fooden: "Treasure. Can we cut it out of the people we don't like and sell it? I want to get a new Mac."

Re: Someone lost their shit over The Devil's Advocate?

[thebitterguy]

Maybe he had a date or something?

Okay, no, seriously, I can't imagine. He was always fairly tightly wound.

Subway preachers are always an interesting experience.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

demo team leader of your acquaintance

Jeez, BG, just how many weird and whacky anecdotes to you have about this guy? (They are all about the same guy, right?)

[thebitterguy]

They are, indeed. Well, I get new ones everytime I meet him, and there's the ones from my good(?) old days as a Taddle Creek members.

[bald-ruminant.livejournal.com]

Riding on a light rail system, and realizing that it's one of several in the country that my father worked on.

He designs safety & signal systems for light rail... but I've seen the kind of math mistakes this man makes just doing light carpentry projects around the house, and it always makes me wonder if he added where he should've subtracted when he was calculating the braking distance...

[thebitterguy]

Oh dear lord. I'm suddenly terrified. Did he do anything on GO Transit?

[bald-ruminant.livejournal.com]

Not to the best of my knowledge.

[kinesys.livejournal.com]

I used to ride the greyhound in order to get home from school. The problem with public transportation is that people are closer to the surface of themselves when in transit. Invariably i'd be on the bus and gets stuck near the screaming baby or the waterhead who's telling the person next them their life story.

Occasionally, i'd get the combo platter...

[elizalavelle.livejournal.com]

I remember that movie, it was godawful. I liked the theme of vanity being the biggest sin of humanity but really the rest of the movie fell flat.

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

I'd like to say it was this morning, when I got caught in my fourth subway shut down since last Thursday.

But it's more likely one of the times I threw up on the bus with a migraine.

[scapersuse.livejournal.com]

Happened to me: probably the time some guy kept giving me the Charles Manson stare on the Yonge subway. I got off at Finch and caught my bus (I lived in Willowdale at the time), and I looked over and he was on the bus, still staring at me. I got off at my stop, and so did he. I ducked behind some houses and ran down sidestreets to get home, I was seriously freaked (but safe).

Happened to someone else, but I witnessed (kinda): I was stuck on a subway between stations, delayed for 45 minutes (thank dog I had a seat). When we finally pulled into the next station down the line, I got off the train and I could hear screaming. Paramedics were carrying a woman off another car who was having a (presumably) claustrophobic freakout. I would have hated to be that woman, or the other passengers in that car who witnessed her breakdown.

[lynne-h.livejournal.com]

That would have to be shutting my hand in a train door after helping a little old lady get her luggage of the train. I was pinned by my thumb to the top of the door frame and struggling to get my other hand out of the window to release the door (old train carriage, no handle on the inside). The guard stood and watched me and never tried to help. Thankfully, by yanking hard on my arm and standing on tiptoes and sort of launching myself out of the window, I managed to get the damn thing open. Needless to say it hurt. Quite a lot.

And to add insult to injury, I had to wait at Casualty until the radiographers had finished watching "Last of the Summer Wine" before anyone would check it out.

[thebitterguy]

That is bad and painful sounding.

And the emergency situation is literally adding insult to injury.

[lynne-h.livejournal.com]

It was and it did. The guard saying to me "Oh I wondered what you were up to" when I went in search of a glass for water to down copious painkillers, still having over half of my train journey to go (more than an hour), was also a killer.