The Bad Side

In relaying this story about the wonders of public transportation and the people that use this service to someone at Northwestern, it occurred to me that I don't think I'd covered it on Murphspot. And as the whole Matt Lawton thing, while good for a quick chuckle and all forms of the "but aren't steroids supposed to make you good?" comment, it's over. Whatever. I'm not a Yankees blog, so I don't care what happens.

Anyway, back to the CTA. This was...I believe, the day of the VIDEO TOWN post and I quite possibly was simply so excited to have a copy of Land of the Dead in my (albeit temporary) possession that it didn't occur to me to go over what had happened. So here, a review.

Deciding to bypass the local video stores, which I didn't believe would be carrying Land of the Dead, I walked to Thorndale (Red Line) to go two stops south to Berwyn, where the Blockbuster I'd been frequenting was situated. This in itself is a bit of a variation from the norm, as I use Granville for most of my platform-standin', mostly because it's been recently renovated and has relatively few boards that look as though they really shouldn't be able to stay up there. So, anyway, Thorndale. As soon as I get to the top, a woman comes up to me, slightly panicked. I tend to make others slightly panicked, so it wasn't really that much out of the ordinary. She proceeds to tell me the sad tale of her 7-day pass, which is now sitting next to the tracks, below the platform, and how the train that's coming in six minutes will most likely blow it away. Trying to calm her down, I press the button to summon assistance from the CTA attendant while she's trying to persuade myself and another young gentleman to jump down onto the tracks to get her pass. We'd established that the platform was probably too high for either of us to be able to reach the pass without getting on the tracks. Before the attendant showed up to tell us that someone would be by who professionally walks on the tracks getting stuff people have dropped will be by shortly, while myself and this other guy are trying to see if it's at all possible to reach this thing (incidentally, the track is a straightaway at that point, and we could see the approaching train leaving Loyola (one stop further north than Granville, which itself is one stop from Thorndale, just so you don't think we're sticking our heads somewhere at train is about to be), another gentleman (age about 40) shows up behind us.

He gets our attention.

He continues to indicate that his message is pertinant to me.

His message is (as close as I can remember):

"They're going to get me! They're going to take me to jail! And I hope they bring you to my cell when you get there. Because I'm going to rape you. You better hope they don't bring you to my cell, because I will rape you."

...

Completely unsolicited, completely confounding, probably not a compliment so much as a much less computer-oriented version of a troll screaming "U will B PWND".

Disturbing, but only if you view it outside the context of "crazy guy on the L". I just thought that, because I post about most good things that happen here, I'd include this. Plus, I want to see what comments this garners.

Incidentally, and completely unrelated to that, I made it back around to visiting Slumbering Lungfish again, and at the risk of sounding like a fan/hack, I'm glad to see that regular posts are, once again, being produced.