A Lesson from "Carrie"

Last week I saw "Carrie the Musical" with a friend. Yes, this is a musical based off of the Stephen King novel (spoilers!) about the high school girl who is tormented by her classmates and ends up killing them all at the prom with her mind powers. Hopefully that did not just ruin the book/movie/musical for anyone. I will admit that I have never read the book or seen the movie and thus did not know the whole story. I knew Carrie was a loner and assumed she was picked on and I knew that she killed people at her prom. However, I always thought the blood she was covered in was the blood of her victims after she had stabbed them all the death. The whole telekinesis thing was news to me! Her psycho religious mother was also something I did not know about. When the mother was singing about how a woman's period is her "curse" because she is impure, my jaw actually dropped and I said, "The fuck?" loud enough for my friend to just nod her head.

All in all the show was decent. My friend and I thought it was worth the $20 tickets and this was also my first time experiencing Chicago's renowned Victory Garden's Theatre, which was also worth the price of admission (Sandra Oh was in the theatre across the lobby starring in "Death and the Maiden"). The singing was great, the staging was well-done and I wouldn't deter people from going. My only qualms about the show would be a) the zealot mother and b) the slightly skewed anti-bullying message.

First, the mother. In every writing class I have ever taken I have learned that all characters need to be three-dimensional. Even your villain/antagonist has to have some reason for becoming the bad guy. Think back to some of the classic villains we all know - Scar, Maleficent, Voldemort, etc. All of these villains are mean and terrible people (and lions), but you see where there evil comes from: jealousy, revenge, blindly believing they are in the right. Although we may not sympathize with the bad guy, we at least see a more humanizing emotion in them rather than just "I'm gonna kill you!!" Carrie's mother did not possess any sort of humanizing trait. She came off as a crazy zealot who, when Carrie gets her period, says, "I hoped this day would never come," meaning she hoped her daughter would never hit puberty and turn into a woman. What? Did you think she was going to die before she was 13? Also, as far as the musical goes, it is not exactly clear how Carrie came to be. Clearly the mother "sinned" and had sex in order to have Carrie. The mother sings about Carrie's father and how she was "young and lustful" but she never says that she didn't want to sleep with Carrie's father or that he raped her. The whole time that she was singing about what a travesty a woman's period is all I kept thinking was, "You clearly menstruated, too, if you had a child! You clearly had sex! Stop being a hypocrite!" I think it's also safe to say that I was taking to mother's view on "the sins of being a woman" a little too much to heart.

Now for the bullying. We all know that bullying is bad and that we should all just be nice to one another. The Golden Rule: Do Unto Others as You Would Have Them Do Unto You (funny story -- until I was 21 I thought it was "Do Unto Others as They Do Unto You" -- slight difference in interpretation). Carrie does show us the error in bullying others, but the message I got was, "Don't bully because then you'll die." Also, there was one male character in the play who was clearly gay, but not out. He did not act flamboyant or anything, but he would comment on how his male friends looked good in a tux or jokingly say that he should ask one of them to prom, and all of his male buddies would give him questioning looks and there would be awkward silence. The first time this happened in the show it was humourous. By the fifth time my friend and I thought, "So you're saying don't bully people because they're different and yet you won't stop making jokes at the gay guy's expense?" Bit of a mixed anti-bullying signal.

The next day, I was thinking about Carrie as I went for a run. I was practicing for a 5K Colour in Motion Run on Sunday. I would be doing the run with my friend, an actual runner who will be doing the Chicago Marathon this fall. I wouldn't call my runs "training", but I was trying to build up my stamina so that I had some hope of not holding her back too much during the 5K. All my life I have hated running not because I find it hard, but because I hate the way I look while I run. Throughout most of my childhood I have battled low self-esteem. I have always blamed the South and my beach-community home for this low opinion of myself because nearly all the girls in my school were size 2-4 and wore bikinis whereas I have always been in the double digits and felt more confident in tankinis or, even better, with a t-shirt over my bathing suit. Only in recent years have I stopped calling myself "fat" and it wasn't until college that I actually began to look at myself and go, "Okay, I don't look too bad." (And last year I bought my first bikini! Say whattt?)

As I was running I was thinking about Carrie and the bullying she endured. I wondered why, when the girls laughed at Carrie in the locker room, I had empathized with her. I have never been the victim of bullying. In grade school I always felt felt and like kids would make fun of me, but no one did. One boy in middle school called me a sheep once (because I was round and had yellow-white hair), but even at the time I remember thinking that he was just trying to get a rise out of me and that calling me a sheep was pretty dumb (hippo would have been much more insulting -- or whale!).

I turned a corner on the beach and continued jogging along the lake shore. Ahead of me, seven teenagers were gathered in the middle of the sidewalk. A few of them turned and saw me coming and motioned to their friends. Immediately I felt my adolescent insecurity well-up. "They're going to make fun of me," I thought, "mock the non-skinny girl at her feeble running attempt." Naturally, I was right. Just as I passed the group of teens I saw two girls smirk at the boys and start an exaggerated lopping run behind me. I thought about Carrie and fantasized throwing the group into the lake with my mind powers. Almost as a gut reaction I spun around, flicked the girls off, and said, "Fuck you." The girls' jaws dropped and they stopped dead in their tracks. I continued my jog and noticed a group of adults looking at me in awe -- most likely the parents of the teens wondering why this random person just flicked off their children.

Feeling like the "weirdo" can make you do strange things. You can suddenly go mind-power crazy at your senior prom or you can shout profanity at a group of children who may or may not have been poking fun at you. Having that immediate "fuck you" reaction towards some dumbass teenagers certainly took me by surprise and I wondered if I would feel this self-conscious during the 5K on Sunday.

It turns out the sudden self-esteem drop was just that -- sudden. I jogged the 5K by myself (my friend is also about a foot taller than me so a light run for her is like a jogging giraffe), but instead of my typical anxieties while running ("Oh god, I am going so slow. Does this even count as a jog? How ridiculous do I look? Why are my thighs so big??) I actually enjoyed myself. I kept up a steady jog for at least 4 of the 5 kilometers and finished the race in 33 minutes -- 5 minutes faster than all of my practice runs! I felt accomplished, fit, colourful (you know, because they throw coloured powder at you during the run), and relieved. I had just run with about 1,000 people and did not let my insecurities get to me. Had I let my usual self conscious feelings take over I probably would have walked the entire 5 kilometers. If only Carrie could have been so lucky!

Before and After the 5K Colour in Motion Run.

It's a Dan Brown World

As a nonfiction writer, I am glad that the crazies of the world (and especially the CTA) seem to be attracted to me. They provide me with excellent writing material and guarantee that my train commutes are rarely boring. Recently, I haven't met any notable crazies except a woman on the CTA who kept shouting that I was "the whore of the CTA" and "the whore of the airport." This was at 8 in the morning and I was too dumbfounded and jet-lagged (I had just returned from Ireland two days previous) to do anything but sit there and ignore her. We were the only two in the train car for about three stops. As soon as the typical morning rush began to bombard the train she turned her shouts elsewhere.

This week, however, I had a much more dedicated crazy. I was on my usual 8:06 a.m. train, which, I have noticed, seems to attract more crazies and angry people than the 8:09 train (the "you're a whore" woman was on the 8:06) -- I guess those three extra minutes of sleep really help! I was able to snag a corner seat. These seats are coveted on the new CTA trains where all seats face the aisle. If you're on a corner then you can avoid being sandwiched in by your book-ending neighbours and it also gives you a little nook to tuck away anything you may be carrying.

I claimed my corner seat, put my tote bag in the nook and began reading a new book a friend lent me. It took only four stops for the train to become jam-packed and a petite woman with a Starbucks cup squeezed onto the seat next to me. Normally I am so engrossed in a book on the train that I am oblivious to anything going on around me. What drew my attention away this morning, however, was the constant turning of the woman with the Starbucks cup. Every minute I would see her head turn and look at me. She did this enough times that I went from self conscious to annoyed very quickly. I then realized that she was talking, but it was at a level where you couldn't tell if it was to herself or to someone near her. Turning my head slightly - the perfect angle of being able to look at her without looking like I was looking at her - I saw that she had her iPhone in one hand and her ear-buds connected to the iPhone. "Ah," I thought, "she is talking to someone on the phone."

I went back to my book, but something about the woman's conversation kept drawing me away. I couldn't understand anything she was saying, but I was curious if she was actually talking to someone or not. She would say a few sentences and then stop, wait a few seconds, and then start talking again, but it wasn't the normal stop-and-go you'd except from a two-person conversation. Finally, I took a peek at the phone in her hands. There was nothing on the screen saying that someone else was on the line. "Here we go," I thought. The woman then dialed a number from her Contacts and waited for it to connect. The number was labeled "Signature, Inc." and was given the designation of "Home." I wondered if this woman was so dedicated to her job that she intentionally labeled it as her "Home" or if she just did not know how to work her iPhone. She waited for the call to connect and when it did she put her phone up to her ear even though her earphones were still in her ears and attached to her phone (for those of you that don't know, this means she could keep the phone on her lap and talk through the speaker on her headphones). Now I knew things were about to get interesting.

"Hey, hey -- it's me," she began, "yeah, I'm on my way down now, I'm on the train. Yeah look -- I talked to the detectives and the FBI and they're just not gonna do a thing. Not a damn thing." She had my full attention. People talking to phantoms on the phone usually say some interesting things, but the ones who bring up detectives or the FBI are even better. "It's that church, you know," she continued, "no one is gonna do a goddamn thing against that church. That's why I'm callin' the State's Attorney. The city of Chicago knows. Oh they know. And they're not gonna do a goddamn thing. They said two letters, two words, and one goddamn thing," She kept repeating this line a lot: two letters, two words, one goddamn _______. I could never completely understand that last word, but each time I thought I heard "game," "pagan," or "thing."

As I eavesdropped, I realized that I hadn't turned a page in my book for a while. It was still open in my hands and people were either going to think I was the world's slowest reader or, my real concern, this woman would realize I was listening to her. She was still glancing over at me from time to time so she was obviously paranoid. I put my book away, pulled out my phone, and began texting what was happening to my roommate. The woman continued to get angrier and louder on the phone: "Because I'm the next target. And no fucking, goddamn way am I going to let someone make me The Target and get away with it. They are endangering lives and no one cares. Not the city of Chicago or the FBI. They think they can just take lives and take mine and not have to pay. No goddamn way. NO GODDAMN WAY. They said -- they said to me two letters, two words, one goddamn thing. Yeah, you know it. Fuckin' church, fucking satanic rituals. Coming in here and taking people's live. I'm not gonna let them. Chicago may be looking the other way, but ain't no one gonna come and make me The Target and not get something from me. NO GODDAMN WAY."

From this point, the woman's conversation began to repeat. I was intrigued by what was going on and wanted to learn more, but all I could piece together was that a church in Chicago is performing satanic rituals on their parishioners, the parishioners are dying from these rituals, the city of Chicago is aware this is going on, but choosing to turn a blind eye, and since this woman is The Target, no one wants to help her. I wondered if she had read any Dan Brown novels lately.

I took another look at her phone. Apparently the call had connected at some point and although she had been talking for about ten minutes, the call time said she had been connected for less than two minutes. I also noticed that Signature, Inc. was an 800 number.

The train finally went underground and the woman got off the phone. She continued to talk angrily to herself about the church and how she had all the evidence that would bring them down. She stated, to no one in particular, that she had a video that would prove everything. She pulled up the video on her phone and, being the creeper that I apparently am, I watched it over her shoulder. The video was of a pair of feet, wearing black sneakers, and walking on carpet. The camera did not move above the ankles and trailed these feet for several seconds until the feet reached tile. At this point the feet moved out of the frame into blinding light and the camera was lifted and moved slowly across a wall of mailboxes. I noticed the woman's current footwear (black sneakers) and gathered that she had videoed her own feet walking down the hallway of her apartment building, into a tiled foyer (hence the bright light probably coming from the front door of the building), and the mailboxes were the ones for the apartment building.

As the train passed through the dark tunnels I was able to get a look at the woman's face. I recognized her immediately as the same woman who, a few weeks previous, had told everyone on the train that we were going to die because the train conductor was new and didn't know how to drive. She said this after the train knocked everyone around a bit at the spot where it always knocks everyone around a bit. I remembered thinking, "Give it a rest woman! Clearly you don't take the train that often if you think a little jolting is the conductor's fault." Now, seeing her again, that previous morning and her shouts made much more sense. I also realized that she was a regular commuter and that our paths will probably cross again.

As we passed through the Loop, most of the morning commute crowd had dispersed and there were about seven other people milling about on my side of the train car. (Some of you may be thinking, "How could all of this possibly take place in one morning commute?? How long are you on the train?" I am on the train for 45 minutes. Just enough time to see most Crazy Train Events from start to finish! Lucky me!) The woman was still very agitated and said, "No one believes me. No one fucking believe me. These goddamn motherfuckers are gonna get away with it -- well not if I have something to say about it! I'm gonna throw this coffee in someone's face and maybe then they'll fucking listen to me." At the mention of "coffee" all seven heads in the train perked up and turned towards me. The woman was holding her coffee in the hand nearest me. I decided that, although I like listening in on these crazy stories and enjoy relaying them to friends, I was not about to become an active member of this woman's delusional morning. I grabbed my tote bag and began to stand when the woman suddenly hopped up and walked to the train door. Everyone watched her out of the corner of their eye (or maybe they were watching for any sudden movements of her Starbucks cup). The woman continued to look over her shoulder at me so I stayed in my seat. I didn't want her thinking I was one of the church members sent to follow her.

The train stopped and the doors opened. As soon as the doors closed again I grabbed my stuff. I stood and headed towards the door since mine was the next stop. I hopped over someone's stretched out legs and planted myself right in front of the exit. I looked out the windows and was suddenly met with the reflective stare of the woman's eyes. I thought she had gotten off at the last stop! Without thinking, I spun to look at her. She was standing right next to me, glaring and looking ready for a fight. I took two huge steps back, making sure to place the outstretched legs between myself and the lady. She kept her eyes on me and I nonchalantly adjusted the straps of my tote bag around my wrist, acting like my almost leap backwards had been a totally natural thing.

Finally the train stopped again, the doors opened, and I let the woman exit before me. We both went up the escalator and while she stood on the right side I scurried up the left. I made it through the turnstile, up the second set of stairs and out of the station. I walked swiftly in the direction of the Sears Tower and waited until I was two blocks away before pulling out my phone to leave a friend a message about everything that had just happened. Before I began talking into my phone I looked behind me to make sure the woman and her Starbucks cup were no where in sight. Then I had to laugh at myself - who was the paranoid one now?

Red Line in Real Time

This is going to be an unconventional blog post. My best friend and I have a habit of creating long email chains between each other and respond to the chain multiple times a day. The other night, I was on my way to see a friend's improv troupe and I started to respond to the email chain to pass the time on the train. As I was responding, however, a man sat beside me and it was clear that he was one of the typical Red Line Crazies. I started typing a stream-of-consciousness narrative to my friend so that the man wouldn't talk to me (because he was definitely trying to and I was just not in the mood). I thought the email ended up being an entertaining and pretty accurate portrayal of a daily/nightly experience on the Red Line! (I took out the very first sentence since it was in response to what my friend had said in her email and I doubt she'd want me publicizing her work woes. Also, things in brackets are the edits I am making right now so that the whole thing makes a bit more sense.)


Oh shit. So I'm on the train right now. I was starting to respond to [your email and] this man just sat next to me. I'm not looking at him, but he's got a ton of blankets tied around him, he's carrying a broom and drinking out of a 12 liter pop bottle. My music is a bit loud, but I think he was trying to talk to me about a yellow snow bus? Oh good. Now he's just coughing into the air and not covering his mouth. Omfg now he's talking about us being on the island of Argyle or "snow island." That must mean we're arriving at the Argyle stop. No, sir, I am not going to look at you. I'm just gonna keep typing and act like I do not hear him. Nooooo don't set the pop bottle behind my head!!! If that spills on me I will do unpleasant things to you with that broom. 

Also, I stepped in a puddle and now my foot is soaked. Fuckkkkkk. Also, I have a discount code for 2 for 1 tonight -- crazy man, stop hacking up a lung beside my head!!! Omg moveeeeee. Wtf. He's talking again. Hmmm I'm a bit curious now bc I heard something about a fish at the Sears Tower. Okie, I'm gonna start typing what he's saying:

Capture the picture. The picture is stone. Capture the picture. (Deep shit right there. Oh oh, now he's taking a drink again...[Now] he yelped and is staring out the window. Wtf is happening? Damn, he's stopped talking now. Right when I was about to start transcribing. WHOA SIR. YOUR HAND IS VERY CLOSE TO MY THIGH. REMOVE IT PLEASE. Now he's mumbling...I can't understand him. Speak up, please!) What is the phone? I don't want to say no more, not forever. I have my wallet. I only heard that though...Craigslist. He didn't say anything to me, let's see. Can you see that? Don't want to get no dance floors we gonna knock them against the door! We don't need 'em (he's acquired a southern accent all of a sudden). Ah. Pot. Pop? Pot. (Hmmm I just looked up. He doesn't look crazy? Sort of like an older, gaunt Ed Helms.) This is a four mile walk. Wilson to Southport. Then to Thorndale and then the snow on the beach BELMONT. (Belmont's the next stop btw.) Ohhhh the dog Tiga...(ummm. He's reading something [now], but I don't think [it is in] English. I'm hearing "pine cone trees" and something about an avalanche. Is the dog Tiga in [the avalanche]?)

Okay. So I'm off the train now. Funny story -- when the man first got on and tried talking to me, I didn't respond [so] he started talking to a man who was sitting across from us. [That] man got off a few stops ago. Well it turns out [that man] DID NOT get off [the train]! He just moved to the next car to get away from the crazy guy bc he  and I just passed each other at Belmont! This is why you should always wear your headphones on the train, even if you're not listening to music. You can easily ignore people and not look too rude!

I hope you enjoyed this. 

#Snowpocalypse (Because Whatelse is There to Write About?)

I am part of a storytelling group in Chicago. We perform once a month and share prepared personal essays on a stage at a bar (not as sketch as it sounds; it's very bohemian!). I wrote this piece (it's still rough) for next month's performance so I thought I would share it here:

#Snowpocalypse

When I was little and growing up on a tropical island off the coast of Georgia, I used to dream about snow. Every Christmas, as the thermometers inched painfully slowly towards the 30 degree mark, I would think, “Yes. This is it. Snow! It’s going to snow!” and every year I was inevitably disappointed and had to make due with building creatures out of cold sand instead of wonderful, fluffy snow. Luckily, I made up for my lost snow days by moving to the Snow Belt of Michigan for college and then moving to Chicago. I have since made many a snowman, the traditional I’m-not-a-mature-adult snow penis, snow angels, and enjoyed lots of sledding, slipping, and sliding.

This winter has been one of the coldest winters in recent history. Many areas of the Midwest and New England hit record low subzero temperatures in January. Schools closed, jobs told employees not to come to work, and frostbite advisories were plastered everywhere. The South also experienced a bit harsher winter than they were used to. Instead of the typical one-week per year of 30 degree temperatures, suddenly southerners were experiencing a week and a half of freezing temperatures. Sheets of ice formed on cars, there was a need to use the words “salt” and “truck” in the same sentence, and some schools also shutdown…for 40 degree weather.

Okay, okay, I will cut the South some slack. When “cold” to you is 60 degrees then I can see not wanting to go to school in 40 degree weather. I mean, I went to a high school in Brunswick, Georgia that was laid out like a college campus so we had to walk outside to get from one class to the next and we still had to go to school when the temperature dropped to a surprising 20 degrees sometimes, but maybe the students nowadays have thinner skin. Or maybe parents now care if their children drop dead of hypothermia. Who knows! The point is, even though in my day we still went to school when it was below freezing, I can understand that 40 degrees feels like 5 degrees to someone who doesn’t have boots and instead has to wear toe-socks and flipflops in the winter (a style that I totally embraced back in high school).

Yesterday, my Facebook feed began to blow-up with talks of snow from my Georgia friends. Friends from South Carolina, Alabama, and Florida commented that they were stocking up on Taco Bell, pop, and chocolate to see their way through the coming snowstorm. Others wished everyone a safe drive to and from work in such conditions. One status in particular caught my eye: “Attention all [Georgia State University] students! Campus will close as of 1 p.m. due to severe weather conditions. Go stock up on bread, cheese, and head home NOW!” I asked my friend what the “severe weather” conditions were. His response: “There’s a chance of snow flurries.”

Snow flurries…snow FLURRIES?!

I need to be more sympathetic. I need to remember what it was like to live in the South having never experienced a Michigan blizzard, driving through blinding snow in Indiana, or walking over solid sheets of ice after freezing rain both melted and froze the mounds of snow around my Chicago apartment. I’m trying to remember that many of my southern friends have never even driven on ice before. They think layering is putting on a long-sleeved and a short-sleeved shirt at the same time. I doubt there’s even a snowplow within a 100 mile radius of my home town!

I try to remember when I was new to the snow. When I was that crazy girl running around Kalamazoo College’s campus and asking my roommate to take pictures of me with my mouth wide-open, head tilted straight back, and tongue collecting as many snowflakes as I could. I remember refusing to walk with my Midwestern friends in the winter because they walked like normal people while I shuffled like a crippled penguin. I remember spinning out my first time on an unplowed road and yelling at my car to just please just stop! I remember the time I poured Morton salt on the steps of my house senior year because I thought that’s what everyone meant by “salting.” I, too, was a snow-virgin once!

And then I see Facebook posts about “My windshield wipers are frozen. I can’t go to work?!,” “Shame on the governor for not calling a state of emergency!” and hastags of “snowpocalypse” and “snowday2014neverforget.” The Starbucks on my island closed at 3 p.m. because of the cold. People are posting prayers and quotes from the Bible, saying that they all need to stick together to get through this harrowing time.

IT IS TWO INCHES OF SNOW. STATE OF GEORGIA, CALM THE FUCK DOWN.

Also, can we please all remember the time in 2011 when Atlanta really did have a snow storm? There was about two feet of snow covering the whole city. For Chicago that’s like, “Two feet sucks, but whatever. We can still go about our day,” but two feet in Atlanta is actually something to talk about. The city only has four snowplows and those all had to go to the airport. So yes, Atlanta is no stranger to snow that halts the entire city, but is this now going to happen every time is snows? My mother works for a college on the coast of Georgia – they closed because the "roads may be icy." My boyfriend lives outside of Savannah – his work also told him not to come into work. Even the National Parks closed!

Listen-up, fellow Georgians and southerners, I am here to tell you that snow is not the enemy. Snow is not there to kill you or do you any real harm. Snow is basically rain that’s decided to solidify and stick around for a while. Yes, it’s cold as fuck (I know a “fuck” can’t be cold, but stick your bare foot into a pile of snow sometime and you’ll learn just how accurate of a description “cold as fuck” is) and it’s slippery and can cause some serious damage when your car spins out or you fall asleep in it or there’s an avalanche, but that’s a lot of snow. A lot of snow. Not 2 bloody inches.

And let’s take the moment to talk about the actual weather-related danger that poses a threat to the South, specifically the coastal regions: hurricanes. As I said before, snow is not there to kill you, but hurricanes kind of are. Hurricanes are board-up-the-windows-and-get-the-hell-out-of-dodge worthy. They come with winds so strong that they can send a regular flimsy McDonald’s straw straight through your hand. They come with flooding, which really sucks for the coastal regions, where people have destroyed the marshlands to build McMansions (i.e. you covered up the natural sponge that could have saved you from a flood, but now you risk losing that boring, bland house you built -- good job!).

Hurricanes come in categories, everyone knows that: 1-5, least damaging to incredibly dangerous. I can remember evacuating for a hurricane once: Hurricane Floyd. He was a 4. I would say about 40% of my island left for Floyd. Some people boarded up their windows, covered them with packing-tape Xs, and moved valuables off the ground. Those of us who left went inland. As per usual, the hurricane hit the Gulf Stream and, instead of slamming into the Georgia islands like it was supposed to, it careened into South Carolina.

My point is, there was no real urgency to the hurricane. Some of us (mostly old people and people with kids) took a little road trip inland with minimal preparations to our homes and then we came back. Since Floyd, my family has never evacuated again. The last hurricane to come that close was Charley. I was working for the National Park Service at the time, a small settlement that is now archeological ruins on St. Simons Island. Charley was also a 4. Did we evacuate? Nope. Did my National Park flood? Oh yeah. Quite extensively. Did we still have to come to work? Yep.

And yet, this winter, in fact as I am typing this piece, the park is closed...for 30 degree weather. My mother also told me that they called in the National Guard in Atlanta. That's right. Chicago gets -15 degree weather that "feels like" -40 and we get what? A snow day? Or at least those of us with very nice bosses did. Atlanta gets less than 1/4 of a foot of snow and they get the bloody cavalry.  I know a guy who goes to Georgia Tech who spent 12 hours trapped in his car before abandoning it on I-75 and just walking home. Some students even slept overnight on their school bus because the traffic was in such a gridlock. Some kids even spent the night in their elementary school because of the snow!

State of Georgia and just the South in general, get your shit together. You're embarrassing yourself.

Chiberia

Greetings from Chiberia! This is the new name/hashtag for the weather that has currently consumed Chicago. There's a lot of snow, but not quite enough to officially earn the "Snowpocalypse 2.0" title (which, if you could see how much snow is out there right now, then that is really saying something about Snowpocalypse 1.0!). Chiberia is a pretty apt description, however.

It is cold. Excuse my language, but it is really fucking cold out there. I have been checking my weather app nearly every hour for the past two days and it hasn't displayed a double-digit positive number since Sunday around 1:00 p.m. Currently it is one degrees Fahrenheit (it was zero degrees an hour ago so we're getting warmer - yay!) and "feels like" -15. Yesterday, my roommate and I joined all the other Chicagoans in performing the Boiling Water Experiment. I filled up a teakettle with water, waited until it started to boil, and then Molly and I went outside and poured the boiling water into the snow. You can really pour the water anywhere because the purpose of the experiment is watching the water immediately turn to snow/steam. It's pretty cool! A lot of people are burning themselves because they are taking pots of boiling water and tossing it in the air, which inevitably kicks some of the water back onto your skin. Molly and I were much smarter than that (although I did accidentally sink my foot ankle-deep in snow so that wasn't too fun).

Besides that, there is really not too much to say about Chiberia. The heat is my apartment is practically non-existent so as I type this post my windows are covered with towels to stop the cold air from seeping through (there's also frost on the inside of the windows...thank you to my landlord, Steve Bojic -- that's his real name!). I am wearing two hoodies and am snuggled under three blankets. It's also a Tuesday and it is the second day my office has been closed due to the weather. This was a wise decision because many of my coworkers live in the suburbs and last night the Metra trains suddenly cancelled all of their departures during the evening commuting hours. The school district has also been closed for a second day in a row and there are stories all over the news and Facebook of people being stranded in the airports and train depots because nothing is coming in or out of Chicago.

On Sunday I worked at Heartbeat Theatre. We are in the middle of a 3-week long story festival that we host every year and it is safe to say that this is a crazy time. From 3:00-10:00 p.m. Thursday - Sunday we have a different Chicago storytelling group/solo artist performing at either our theatre or at the Kentwood (from my Are You Kidnapping My Husband story). Snow had been pouring down on Chicago since Saturday afternoon. I was manning the box office and most of the calls I was receiving were, "Are you still having shows today?" The roads were awful and the Front of House (FOH) Manager later told me that we should have cancelled, but, as usual, we did not and the shows went on!

Around 1:30 p.m. the girl who was the shuttle driver for the day came to the theatre and reported that the parking lot had not been plowed. She had also gotten stuck numerous times on her journey to and from the theatre. "I'm sorry," she said to the FOH, " I can't drive in this. I just can't. I don't feel safe." I had just caused a tremendous paper jam in the ticket-printer so I immediately raised my hand, "I'll do it! You do box office and I'll shuttle!"

Luckily and sadly, I do not have any fun stories from driving the shuttle around in nearly two feet of snow. The lot was eventually plowed, but the snow never stopped falling. The plows could hardly keep up with the rate at which the snow was piling up. The van spun out and got stuck numerous times, but each time we persevered. I have since named the van Shackleton because of his impressive barreling-through-snow capabilities. I sat in the van for four hours and only shuttled two people. The last person and I bonded for about 15 minutes after I picked her up from the last show of the night and we sat behind two cars that were stuck: one was trapped in a parking space they were trying to pullout of and the other was stuck waiting for that parking place. Finally, the car directly in front of Shackleton moved up enough so that I could pull into an unplowed alley. Shackleton and I stopped and started numerous times as we created a path for the three other cars that decided to follow our lead down the alley and eventually we did make it to the next road. Shockingly, the middle seat of the van did not flip up once!

So that's all from Chiberia folks. Nothing too exciting, but that's mostly because none of us want to venture outside. My neighbours are trying to venture out, however. I keep hearing their cars squealing against the snow and ice in our alleyway. Last night, a car did this for forty minutes before they were finally able to make it out of the alleyway. Did I mention that not a single snowplow has graced our alleyway all winter? My landlord says, "The city will do it," but I don't see why they would when the alleyway is private property and Mayor Emmanuel has already cut the budget for snowplows this year. I made the mistake of asking my landlord if a plow would ever come through our alley or if we would just have to wait until the snow melts naturally (currently, I cannot get my car out of my parking space and Molly cannot get hers in). My landlord responded by calling me in hysterics about how I could possibly expect him to put a plow on the front of his car. Needless to say, that was not at all what I meant and clearly Chiberia is getting the best of everyone's sanity.

Stay warm!

Every Day I'm Shuttlin'

As many of you know, one of my jobs is as a shuttle driver for Heartbeat Theatre. Recently, I have been lucky enough to start working as a House Manager and Box Office Associate, but, as one of only three people who passed the insurance test to drive the shuttle, I am still primarily a shuttle driver. This job typically consists of driving the shuttle (which is actually just a minivan so none of us had to get a commercial drivers license) from Heartbeat Theatre to a parking lot about six blocks away. Once there, the shuttle driver sits in the van anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half. Your job is to wait until a patron parks in the lot and then you drive them to Heartbeat (or one of the other two theaters in the Rogers Park neighbourhood that we help out). During the performance the shuttle driver hangs out inside Heartbeat Theatre and once the show is over you drive the patrons back to the lot.

Pretty simple, right? You're probably thinking, "How do you not get bored with the same routine night after night?" The answer is: yes, there are nights when I am so bored with shuttle driving that I literally just stare at my cellphone and watch the minutes go by. Back when the sun stayed up until 8pm I would sit in the van and read. I use some of my shifts to catch up on phone calls from the week and recently I have started bringing my laptop and working on various personal essays. However, there are those nights when the act of shuttle driving is more active than it should be...

Blame It on the Maintenance

The shuttle van is old. For the past year I have been telling people that the van is from the 90s, but I recently learned that that was incorrect (which I will get to later). The back door has a button on the handle that passengers inside the van must press before they can pull the door shut. This constantly confuses people and they will tug with all their might at the door, totally disregarding me in the front seat saying, "You have to push the button. No -- the button. It won't release until you -- oh I'll just do it." Then there are those who press the button and, because the parking lot is not a flat surface, the door starts to slide shut on its own. Most people will turn to me triumphantly and beam as the door takes about two minutes to slide shut. When the patron realizes the light inside the van is still on they will look from the door, to the light, to me like a dejected puppy. I get out, open and shut the door, and then explain that the van is too old and was not made during the time of automatic doors.

The middle seat in the van has also given each shuttle driver a fun experience from time to time. I believe the minivans that are created now have seats that fold down and create a flat surface. The shuttle van, however, still has good ol' seats that click into tracks on the van floor. When you want to take the seats out you have to somehow lift, pull, and slide the seats through the hatchback. Putting them back in is equally as complicated and tedious and sometimes you think the seats are securely in their track, but they're not. No worries, though! The shuttle driver will realize this error while driving patrons around. If only one person is sitting in the middle seat and is sitting on the end of the seat rather than in the middle -- well then that person is in for a treat when the van hits even the most minor of bumps and WHOOPS! The seat has flipped sideways, trapping the more-often-than-not very old person between the now perpendicular seat and one of the van doors. This also happens when someone is trying to slide out of the van and the flipping seat acts almost like a springboard and launches the person out. I now keep one hand pressed down on the seat when people slide out so that it happens less often. There's sadly nothing I can do when the seat flips while I am actively driving. Usually I just say, "Welcome to nonprofit theatre!"

Perhaps the biggest maintenance issue of all has been the windshield wipers. Last December, I drove the van from Heartbeat to the lot for a special event we were having that night (an interactive stage reading). The performance was sold-out and we even offered dinner service an hour and a half before the show. It was snowing, but the kind of snow that actually sticks to your windshield, so as I drove up Morse Avenue I turned on the wipers. It was obvious that the wipers were on their last legs because they dragged heavily across the glass and made an obnoxious squeak as they moved, but, like I said, Heartbeat is a nonprofit theatre so you basically have to use something until you literally cannot use it anymore (or, rather, you cannot gaffe/duct tape it anymore).

I was halfway between the theatre and the lot when the windshield wiper on the driver's side flew off. One moment is was there and the next it was just gone. I immediately pulled over and retrieved the wiper from the road. The black blade had snapped clean off, while the metal rod that keeps the blade in place was still attached to the van. I called the theatre, explained what happened, and was at a loss as to what I should do. Water was collecting pretty significantly on the windshield and the metal bar was bent so much that I didn't think the blade could snap back into place. "Just make it work," the Box Office Manager told me. "Just pick up the people in the lot, come back here and we will gaffe tape it."

Now, I will admit that this is the one time I have ever been unhappy with Heartbeat Theatre. I mean, there I was, driving a van that would be full of people very soon, it was snowing, the sun was setting, I was holding a windshield wiper in my hands, and the solution was to tape it back on?

I arrived at the lot and people immediately began walking towards the van. I got out, holding the blade in the air. "Can anyone fix this?" I asked. "It flew off on Morse and I don't know how to get it back on." One of our regular patrons helped me snap the blade back onto the metal bar, but warned that it was in no way a permanent fix. I told him that the Box Office Manager would be meeting me outside with some tape to secure the blade into place. He gave me an incredulous look. I smiled. "Welcome to nonprofit theatre!"

Flash forward to October of this year -- ten months after the windshield wiper blade flew off on Morse Avenue. Now, both blades have been gaffe taped onto the van. The blade on the driver's side has started to bend dramatically and it leaves 1.5 inch-wide streaks of water in places where the blade no longer touches the windshield. The other blade is missing a piece of rubber and makes an excruciating metal-scraping-glass sound as it moves pathetically across the windshield. All three shuttle drivers have expressed concern over the dilapidated wipers, but to no avail. "We don't have the money," is the main explanation we are given. While this excuse is annoying and made most of us think to ourselves, "Well then you drive the van when it's dark and raining and tell us how safe you feel," it did not really upset me until one night when it began to pour.

It was one of the last days of sold-out show. I had shuttled so many people to and from the lot and the theatre that I knew it was going to take at least two trips to get everyone back to their parked cars (and there was a second evening performance that night). My first group squeezed in and as I pulled away from the theatre it was immediately clear that the wipers had finally given up on the van. The wiper in front of the driver (me) only cleared away water at the very top and bottom of the windshield. The other one took water off in random patches and continued to damage everyone's eardrum with its piercing scrape. The rain fell harder and harder. After just two blocks I apologized to everyone, pulled over at a gas station and wiped the windshield off with my sleeve.

As the van continued down the road I kept my eyes glued to the windshield. I have always known that windshield wipers are useful because they enable you to see more clearly in the rain and snow, but never before had I realized how detrimental they are to actually being able to see. In my mind I always thought, "Water is clear. You can probably see through it well enough." I was wrong - so so so wrong. Lights and shapes blended into each other and the entire van was eerily silent as all the passengers realized just how little I could see. I kept my eyes peeled for pedestrians who may decide to cross the street without regard for moving cars (which happens often). In the six blocks between the theatre and the lot I pulled over three times to clear the windshield with my sleeve. There was one narrow road that I had driven on so many times that day that I drove down it through pure memory.

When I finally reached the lot, you could physically feel the tension in the van release. Everyone thanked me profusely and two couples got out to inspect the windshield wipers. A young man removed the driver's side windshield and replaced it with the noisy one -- it made a horrible sound, but at least it cleared some water off. He handed me $10 and his girlfriend told me that it wasn't safe for me to have to drive like that. Another man handed me $20 and said, "Get new windshield wiper blades." I called the theatre from the lot, explained the situation and said that we were now down to one blade and a man gave us $20 to get new ones. There was no excuse now. During the second show that night I drove to Auto Zone with the man's donation and the company credit card. I bought new wiper blades and found, to my utter disbelief, that the van was actually a 2000. Who knew! (Although this does mean it is almost fourteen years old now...)

Blame It on the Passengers

Again, you would think that driving a minivan in between a theatre and a parking lot that is only six blocks away would leave little room for people to demonstrate any sort of eccentricities, but sometimes that seven minute car ride can feel like a half hour.

First of all, Heartbeat has children's shows during the day on Saturdays and Sundays. Sometimes, the kids who go to see these shows are not thrilled about life in general (this usually happens when the adult that is with them makes the child leave their Gameboy in the car) and they throw temper-tantrums during the entire ride. Then there are the kids who openly fight with the adults in the car, or bicker with their siblings and for some reason feel the need to drag me into the fight. 

My favourite child passenger, however, was a little boy who climbed into the backseat with his mother. I usually take a back alley to get out of the parking lot, but since it was under construction (due to an four foot wide hole in the ground -- an actual hole that went down about six feet) I had to take a right out of the lot, a right onto the next road, and then one more right after that. As I pulled onto the third street, the little boy sat very straight and narrowed his eyes at me in the rear-view mirror.

"We just made a U-turn," he said.

"Because we just made three rights? Yes, we did."

His voice was stern. "I know where we are."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You just made three turns and now we're back on Clark..." He continued to stare at me.

"Honey," his mother said, putting an arm around him, "I think she knows what she's doing."

"I know where we are," he repeated.

"We're headed to the theatre," I assured him. "It's all one-way streets so I have to make all those rights to turn around."

"We're on Morse now," he said, still not breaking eye contact.

"Yes. We are. You're very good."

"I just want you to know that I know."

My next group of paranoid passengers came about two weeks later. Two men pulled into the lot, parked, and got into the van. Since I was shuttling for both Heartbeat Theatre and another theatre in Rogers Park, Steinbeck Cabaret, I asked which show they were going to. Before either man could answer, a cellphone began to play the theme song from The Twilight Zone.

"One moment," the taller of the two men said, "it's my wife. Hello?"

His earpiece was turned up so high that I could hear everything his wife said. "There is no shuttle," she said. "There is no shuttle!" I looked around the parking lot to see if I could see another car. Every now and then an unobservant patron will park in the lot and immediately call the theatre to say that the shuttle is not there. Usually I will be looking at these people and waving at them while they talk on their phones, totally oblivious to the van that says "HEARTBEAT THEATRE" in giant red letters.

"There is a shuttle," the husband responded.

"What?" the wife snapped. "No there is not. What do you mean there is a shuttle?"

"There is a shuttle."

"Where?"

"Right on the corner of Morse and Ravenswood. Just like the map said."

"There is no shuttle."

"What theatre are you going to?" I asked.

"Heartland," the shorter man responded.

"Heartland?" there was no Heartland Theatre in Rogers Park, but there was a cafe by that name. "You mean the restaurant? You're going to go there before the show?"

"No, we're going to the Heartland Theatre."

"Hmmm...there's no theatre by that name. What's the show?" He gave the name of a show. I hadn't heard of it.

"What's happening?" the wife demanded.

"We're trying to figure out where we're going," the husband responded.

"Where are you?!"

"We're in the shuttle."

"THERE IS NO SHUTTLE."

"Honey, there is. We are in a van."

"Hello!" I called. The wife didn't respond. "What do you mean you're in a van?" she asked.

"Are you going to the Kentwood?" I asked. There is a third theatre in Rogers Park that Heartbeat sometimes shuttles for. Kentwood is not a typical theatre with a regular season, but instead just a theatre space that companies can rent. I was unaware that there was a show going on at Kentwood, but assumed that I had just not looked closely at the Shuttle Schedule, which normally lists all of the theaters we are driving for.

"Yes!" the shorter man responded. "The Kentwood."

"Huh. I didn't realize they had a show."

"What did she say?" Miss Paranoid chirped. "She hasn't heard of the theatre?"

"I've heard of it. I just wasn't aware that there was a show going on right now."

"Do you drive there?" the husband asked.

"Yes." I began to reverse out of my parking spot.

"Where are you? Are you by the Metra tracks?"

"Yes, dear, we are by the Metra tracks, on the northeast corner of Morse and Ravenswood. Just like the map said."

"What kind of car are you in?"

"It's...it's just a van. It's a shuttle."

"I promise I am taking you to the theatre," I said.

"See, honey? The nice young lady promised that she is taking us to the theatre."

The wife was silent. "That's not funny," she said.

We began driving down Morse. As we did, the wife asked for street-by-street updates of where we were. It was then that I realized she legitimately believed I was trying to kidnap or in someway harm her husband and his friend. The husband tried to joke around and say that we were suddenly entering Evanston or jumped onto Lake Shore Drive, but it was clear that the wife was having none of his tomfoolery. The shorter man kept handing me one dollar bills each time the wife snapped about wanting to know why they weren't at the theatre yet.

When we finally arrived at Kentwood, two older women immediately walked to the van and greeted the men. They did not even glance at me. A young girl came out of the theatre and I rolled down the passenger window. She introduced herself as the House Manager. "So...who are you?" she asked. Finally all the puzzle pieces clicked into place.

As I said before, Kentwood is not a regular theatre. Therefore, each time a show is put on at that space, it is an entirely new theatre troupe. Sometimes the theatre troupe contacts Heartbeat and asks for us to shuttle for them. They have to pay us for this service. The current theatre troupe at Kentwood did not know anything about the shuttle service and therefore did not pay for it. When the two couples researched the parking situation at Kentwood, they were directed to Heartbeat's shuttle site because Kentwood had not updated their website since their last show (which Heartbeat did shuttle for). Therefore, when the two women were dropped off at the theatre and mentioned the shuttle, the current theatre troupe must have told them that they did not offer that service. Then, when the wife called her husband and learned that he was in a van -- well it is easy to see why she freaked out. She knew there was not supposed to be any van and yet there he was, being driven around by some crazy young girl.

The House Manager told me to refuse anyone else who showed up at the parking lot since they were not paying for the shuttle service. Luckily, no one else arrived for Kentwood and when I picked up the two couples they were talking excitedly about the show they had just seen. As the four passengers left the shuttle van, the shorter man gave me a few more dollars since he knew I did not have to pick them up and the wife of the taller man turned to me before she shut the door. "I am sorry I thought you were a kidnapper," she said in complete sincerity. "It happens to the best of us," I responded.

So there you have it! Just a little taste of the surprisingly eventful world of a shuttle driver. I have left out other fun tidbits such as drunk people throwing glass bottles from third-story windows at the van, crazy people who try to come up to me in the parking lot and make conversation, patrons who thought I was actually a taxi, and a near-miss T-boning by a CTA bus. Needless to say, this job has given me a whole new appreciation for the people who make their living as a shuttle driver. Always remembers, dear readers: tip your shuttle driver! They have to put up with a lot of shit.

The CTA: A Travel Guide (Part I)

The Chicago Transit Authority. Also known as the CTA, or, if you are talking about only the train system, the El (for Elevated). The CTA comes in various coloured lines: red, purple, brown, pink, green, yellow, blue, and orange. Like the plethora of Chicago neighbourhoods, each line is unique in its route, service, people, and reputation. Let’s go through each colour before beginning your CTA journey:

First, a small map to help you visualize:

Red Line: If there is a “main line” in Chicago then this is it. Spanning from the northern tip of the city – Howard – to the very end – 95^th/Dan Ryan – this line runs straight through the center of Chicago (and is one of the few lines that runs underground). One of two trains that operates 24/7 this line is possibly the most diverse line. You start at Howard (aka Sketchville where there are signs in shop windows of a little child saying, “Don’t shoot me. I want to grow up!”) and then travel south picking up bohemians (Rogers Park), college students (Loyola), businesspeople (Fullerton, Belmont), international transplants from Asia (Argyle, Chinatown/Cermack), Yuppies (Bryn Mawr, Berwyn), drunk frat boys (Addison), tourists (Chicago thru Jackson), and homeless people who just want somewhere to sit, sleep, and be safe for a few hours. There are some people who deem this line one of the more dangerous lines (because there are robberies and altercations sometimes, but come on – we’re in a city) and avoid it after 5 p.m. However, those of us who travel the Red Line every single day – and have, at one point in time, been on the train between all the 24 hours of the day (it’s the fastest/cheapest way to get home at 4 a.m.!) – we simply describe it as eclectic.

Blue Line: The other 24/7 train line of the CTA. Full of college students and young families who do not really want to live in the suburbs, but also cannot afford to live in the city. This line primarily stays in the western half of the city except when it travels east to enter the Loop. (The Loop is what the city center is called – i.e. downtown. It’s called the “Loop” because all of the train lines meet there and loop around the downtown – except the Red Line, which runs straight through.) This line is most known for taking people to and from O’Hare, being 24/7, and, most recently, head-on, unexplainable-it-must-have-been-an-equiptment-failure train crashes. 

Green Line: This line has the worst reputation of all the colours. It runs from Oak Park to Chicago’s Southside (not the geographic Southside like Hyde Park and 95^th/Dan Ryan, but the bad Southside that’s known for lots of violence). Like the Red Line, most people do not enjoy riding this train after dark and there is normally a separation between white people at the front of the train and all other races at the back of the train. Clearly this has nothing to do with segregation, but is instead fear-related (the closer one is to the conductor the safer they feel). I once walked into the very last car of the Green Line to ride from Oak Park back to the Loop and the people I was with stated, “Are you crazy?? We have to go to the front where the conductor is!” Personally, I have never had a problem on the Green Line, but then again I have never taken it south of the Loop. It is also the one line where I have heard first person accounts of being mugged. This line is as diverse as the Red Line, but the Southside aspect seems to make the general public forget that it also travels to Oak Park (aka Yuppieville). 

Yellow Line: The Skokie Swift. This line takes passengers to a from Skokie, a boring suburb most known for Orthodox Jews and a gigantic outdoor mall. It was deemed “swift” because it picked up at the Howard stop (end of the Red Line) and dropped off at the Dempster station without any stops in between. The line has since gained two more stops (whoa!), but is still known as The Skokie Swift. It is also only three to four train cars long, thus making it look like the "special train."

Orange Line: This is the Midway train. It takes passengers from Midway Airport at the southern end of Chicago, travels north to the Loop, and then heads southwest to a few of the neighbourhoods-that-are-almost-suburbs. From what I have been able to tell, people mostly take this line to transfer to another line or to go to Midway Airport. (Also, as a side note, for a train whose primary purpose is going to and from the airport, it should copy the Blue Line and be 24/7 because anyone who flies out right when Midway opens or comes in super late has to either take a taxi or bus.)

Pink Line: Chicago’s newest El line. I honestly do not know much about this line except that it takes people directly west like the Green and Blue lines, but it stops much sooner than those two colours. I like to think it’s main purpose is to take people to Pilsen, a neighbourhood of Chicago set in the industrial area that is slowly becoming an artist-haven.

Purple Line: The line that runs from the tip of Evanston to the Howard station. This line also runs “express” to the Loop during the morning and late-afternoon rush hours. This is an amazing train if you catch the express because it runs parallel to the Red Line, but skips about 14 stops. Deemed a “safe” train because it is full of Evanstonites (i.e. business people, Northwestern college students, and the generally wealthy/well-off). This train is also one of cleanest and has the best air-conditioning in the summer.

Brown Line: Also known as “The White People Mover” and the “Whitey Express.” This train travels through Chicago’s more affluent  neighbourhoods and, like the Purple Line, is typically very clean, polished, and full of less weirdos. This train is perhaps the slowest train, which is either due to all of the twist and turns it must make or the fact that most of the passengers are AARP members (or a combination of both). This train is sardine-packed during the morning and late-afternoon rush hours (re: affluent), sparse on the weekend nights, and ends at an inconvenient 1-2 a.m. 

Do’s and Don’t’s When Riding the CTA:

Do wear your headphones and sunglasses. This way people will not talk to you. If they do, you can either a) respond accordingly or b) act like you can’t hear them and are in your own little world. It is also an excellent way to eavesdrop on interesting conversations.

Don’t talk loudly on your phone, talk loudly to your friend, or listen to loud music. This will cause other passengers to wish bad things upon your person, possibly accost you, and maybe even smack you in the face with their yoga mat (I may or may not have “accidentally” hit a man in the face with my yoga mat when he was yelling into his phone to his “bitches” who didn’t realize what a “fucking fine ass motherfucker” they were dealing with. Everyone on the train glared at him -it was clear we were minutes away from tossing him onto the electrified tracks - and sometimes you’ve just gotta hit these people with a yoga mat. Namaste, asshole.)

Do bring a book. It’s going to be a long ride. (My every day 45 minute to an hour commute on the El has caused me to become a reading fiend! I have gone through six books in two months. I haven't done that since entering Summer Reading Programs in grade school.)

Don’t freak out when you smell smoke. CTA trains catch on fire more often then you’d expect and the conductor has a nifty little spray bottle for leaning out the window and extinguishing these. Or you’ll have a fun adventure of being ushered off the tracks by the fire department.

Do brace yourself when the train starts to move and starts to stop. You do not want to be that person who topples over onto everyone else and then acts surprise that the movement of the train would cause them to do that. It’s embarrassing. 

Don’t be the jackass who takes up two to three seats to take a nap. There’s a special place in Hell for those people.

Do wash your hands after riding the CTA. There are some disgusting people on that train and possibly the source of the next worldwide pandemic. Disgusting acts witnessed on the train include but are not limited to: puking, peeing, snot wiped on the poles, spitting (everywhere), and the discarding of food. For a comparison of just how unsanitary the CTA is: I will (and have) walked barefoot on the streets of Chicago, London, and Aberdeen, Scotland. I will NEVER go barefoot on the CTA. Also, a friend contracted pinkeye from the CTA and I often get large welts from some sort of bug who has clearly learned that the El is the Country Buffet of succulent morsels. 

Don’t step onto a train before the other passengers have disembarked. There is a special place in Hell for these people, too.

Do expect the CTA to run swiftly and smoothly whenever you are not in a hurry and to stop frequently due to track maintenance, fires, hooligans, and because the conductor just feels like it whenever you are crunched for time.

Don’t play the Which Ball is the Cup Under? game. There are people who make their livelihood from these games and you will not win. Ever. The answer is: there is no ball. However, if you say that, then somehow the ball will magically appear. The real game you’re playing is: You Lose and the Ball Man Wins. 

And finally...

Do appreciate the CTA. Sure, it smells funny, people will preach to you, hit on you, pester you for money, and even try to sell you things, but all CTA riders should appreciate that the CTA even exists. No matter where you are in Chicago you are always at the most a two-block walk from a train or bus stop and, even with the recent increase in transit fares, Chicago has the cheapest public transportation system in the U.S. You can also travel several miles without having to do anything except get on and off a train or bus. Months ago I was driving in the car with my boyfriend and as he drove I immediately pulled out my iPhone to start playing a game. Bernardo* (I can't remember if I have ever given my boyfriend an alias on this blog so for now he will be dubbed Bernardo until I can remember what his original alias was) commented, "We can't talk? You immediately have to pull out your cellphone?" It was then that I realized how accustomed I had grown to the everyday equation: traveling = sitting and staring at your phone or reading a book. While this habit is a bit rude when riding in a car with another person, what a lucky way to pass time on your commute! Instead of sitting in traffic and having to pay attention to the other cars around you, CTA riders can mentally checkout and leave the hard-work to the train drivers.

In summary, the CTA is like a family: you've got your weirdos, your snobs, the smart ones, the high school dropouts, the hippies, the embarrassments, the ones you actually like and are friends with, and the crazy uncle who everyone is a bit leery around and generally tries to avoid, but in the end you've got to love them because they are always there (although they may not be terribly punctual) and, honestly, what other family do you have?