A woman recently stripped naked in the Denver Airport and tried to request a boarding pass. This got me thinking about awkward or utterly bizarre things that have happened to me in transit. My worst experience was the time that a woman on the Toronto subway, who was wearing four coats and an eyepatch, asked if she could put her head in my lap, and would I be willing to check her ears for maggots. My buddy (while also on the Toronto subway) had a man sit across from him and stare intently at him, all the while eating page after page of the local paper. Another friend, while flying to Europe, watched a man piss all over his suitcase after security questioned him about its contents. Focus: What strange things have you seen in your travels? Freaks and geeks on your commute to work? Oddballs and nutcases on your flight to your vacation destination?
In Austin, Texas, riding the bus. Nothing too bizarre, but kind of just "wtf?" A reasonably attractive guy shared a seat with a woman at least 60, easily 30 years his junior. She had a smoker's wrinkled face, gray streaked hair, missing at least one tooth in the front, sounded like she gargled with hot tar, a perpetual loogie in her throat. The weird part is they were fucking goosing each other and giggling during this 30 minute ride to the airport. This moved onto some weird eye contact then inappropriate touching. This dude was REALLY into her. Very busy hands. I just sat there watching them, completely convinced this old woman brought her male prostitute on the bus. The only explanation. Good for her, I can never get my prostitute into my trunk, let alone a bus. Audreymonroe no doubt will win this with some dude in a schoolgirl outfit, sporting a Yahoo Serious haircut grilling burgers on the subway train, singing a pop song backwards, his cock and balls dangling out.
I did not. Because I anticipated that she probably did have maggots somewhere on her person. Definitely a couple behind the eyepatch, I'm guessing.
I ran into this character in the Toronto subway a few years ago. He calls himself Zanta, and he is very fucking insane. He was doing handstand push-ups against a holding bar inside the subway car like it was nothing, over and over. I thought we were on some hidden camera show or something, but this nutbag has built up quite a reputation there over the years....
On a flight back from Germany a few years ago, two different flight attendants had to tell a man and woman sitting a few rows up to stop having sex. She had climbed into his lap facing forward, and was grinding on him for a good couple minutes before someone noticed. Never thought Ice Age 2 could get someone so hot and bothered. But it got a hell of a lot stranger when I saw them in line at Customs exchanging phone numbers.
I visited Germany a while back with the family, and when we were in Frankfurt we had to board a train for somewhere I can't remember. But when we went to what we though were our seats, some Nun's were sitting in them. We tried reasoning with them that the seats were ours, but our German was awful and their English was worse. This turned into an almost heated argument that resulted in me punching a Nun in the gut and taking the seats. Just kidding. The train conductor just came back and upgraded us to first class to clear up the train people's mistake whom gave us all the same tickets. The Nun's just sat back down quietly and prayed for us. We went and drank some delicious beer.
I knocked a guy out of his wheelchair once. It's not really as bad as it sounds -- what happened was I came up behind him, put one hand on each handle bar, and tipped him onto the ground. I'd actually been trying to help -- his wheel was stuck between the train and the platform, and the doors were opening and closing on him. It turns out that me bounding up and pushing did pretty much the opposite of helping, and he tumbled out of his chair and onto the platform. Now, all of my stuff is still on the train, so I had to try to prevent the doors from closing completely, all while dislodging the chair and trying to cram him back into it. Eventually, the conductor realized what happened and came over, but really at no point did my intervention yield a positive outcome. In fact, I can only imagine what it must have been like for the guy in the chair, who first gets his wheel stuck in the door, which was probably annoying, and then has some random dude stand up and wordlessly knock him onto the ground.
Angel's story made me laugh at my desk at work today; it was embarrassing. I'm just going to paste my story from last weekend's drunk thread from last Friday here. I was trying to come up with a different one - because between the subway every day and my travels in the past few years I'm sure I have a hefty collection- but I think my concept of normal travelers has become very skewed. So here's the most recent one, at least: On the train to work today, a crazy guy got on on my second-to-last stop, and he started pacing the car shouting "I" over and over and over again. "I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I!" Everyone was trying to ignore him, but I look up at one moment and realize that there's another, more incognito, crazy guy sitting across from me. He's looked really agitated. And, very quietly, he goes: "K." I think I was the only person that heard him. Meanwhile, the guy continues with his "I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I!" And every couple of rounds, the other guy, with a complete straight face and sitting completely still will say "K." "K." "K." And the guy keeps going "I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I!" And eventually the guy starts to get really upset, and he starts getting louder. "K! K! K! K! K! K!" A couple more people start to notice, but it isn't as constant as the "I" guy so for the most part it's not too noticeable. "I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I!" Eventually, he pulls himself half out of his seat, his face is totally red, and he starts screaming it. So now, this is happening: "I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I!" K! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! K! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! K! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! I! K!" But the "I" guy is completely oblivious, so the "K" guy starts to match his consistency, but much louder. So it's just these two crazy guys battling it out, only the "I" guy continues to not notice what's happening, and the "K" guy keeps getting angrier, and I can't fucking help it. I tried to contain it. But I just start giggling like a schoolgirl, because it is just so ridiculous. And the "K" guy whirls around me and yells "ASSHOLE!"
I recommend riding the cta trains and busses.I'm sure any large city will have crazy people on their public transit system. We have the fake blind guy with googly eyes and a bent up blind guy stick who only approaches nicely dressed people. There's the old guy who will scream nonsense til he's red in the face then sit quietly like nothing happened. Dozens of crazy people singing or talking about weird shit. Many people smelling like cat piss. These people systematically ride the damn train. No idea what they do otherwise. Makes for great people watching / fearing for your life.
You live in Texas, the only public transportation is pick up trucks that stop at Home Depot to pick up $20/day illegal laborers. The Philly public transportation system is generally free of crazy people, for an otherwise fucked up city. You need to go up to NY to get the real crazies. One weekend in NY last year a guy who looked absolutely identical to Oscar the Grouch - full unibrow, scruff, etc. - decided he had a problem with me early one morning on the subway. He launched into an incoherent rant, but honestly, I think I was far from the least comfortable person in the car. Not breaking out laughing then was easily among the top 10 struggles of my life.
I'm saying. The only "public transportation" I've ever used was a school bus...and this seems like it may be a positive in my life.
If you live or work in a big city and use mass transit, weird quickly becomes normal, but when you have friends visiting who haven't spent any/much time in a metropolis, seeing their reactions is priceless. A friend from college and his wife, both from the Wisconsin boonies, we're visiting me in NY one year during Easter. We were on the subway on Good Friday when Jesus, donning a thorny crown and toting a cross, boarded the train, propped his cross up, reached under his robe and produced a newspaper and apple and began chomping and reading. They were most amazed that no one else on the train gave him a second look.