Ms. Frumpy

Asian lady plops down next to me on the bus with no regard for the fact there are plenty of seats. I mean, can she not feel that she’s basically sitting on me?! And when the bus comes to a stop, she has not self control of keeping herself from pressing up against me. She eventually moved her frumpy ass elsewhere when a 3 seated bench freed up.

Middle Seat

I just don’t get the thinking of some people who get on the train and insist on sitting down in the first seat they see instead of gauging if they can even fit in the seat.

This white guy took a seat in the middle between me and a black gentleman. Even though he was able to sit into the seat, he wasn’t able to lean back because his shoulders would have been smashed up against me and the black gentleman. He sat leaning slightly forward and shoulders scrunched as though he was shoulder to shoulder with us. He eventually got up and stood for a little bit before sitting down elsewhere.

Meanwhile, a pungent Indian man took a seat in between me and the black gentleman. The Indian man did not sit with his back to the seat. Instead, he is sitting 3/4 and leaning forward. It bothers me that he smells. I suppose it could be worse. It could be a really hot day and no A/C on the train.

Nasty Indian feet

Here we have an Indian guy riding train after a long day of work. He removes his sandals to reveal nasty ashy toes. He rubs them with his hands and then proceeds to rub his face and head. Ugh! He crosses his leg with his foot encroaching into the adjacent passenger’s personal space. The passenger is a woman and she is grossed out by his feet. She eventually moves to another seat at Roosevelt-Continental. Surprisingly, the Indian man did not get off.

Homeless man with no shoes

There’s a homeless man with some busted up feet riding the morning commute F train. He woke me from my nap with his incoherent ramblings and cursing. He was complaining about his rotten feet which is covered up with dirty tattered socks. He was pointing to it and creating unnecessary attention to his nasty feet. Strangely, he’s dressed in a light colored suit, a baseball cap, and carrying a small red shopping bag.

I think he eventually intimidated seated passengers because now he’s sitting on the bench with plenty of room around him. I don’t know when he got on the train. Surprisingly, he does not smell especially given the hot weather we’ve been experiencing.

He got off at Rockefeller Center.

Chew-chew…

This stupid woman dressed in polka dots plopped her fat ass next to me and then angles her ass against me. Then she proceeds to chew on her nails like some kind of all you can munch buffet. It’s really disgusting having this woman chomping on her nails next to me. Her munching is at eye level and within my periphery. The sight made me want to hurl. I can’t imagine what her nails must look like. Luckily, the man sitting next to me got off the train, and I quickly slid over away from Chewy while another woman took the vacant seat.

What boggles my mind was that she wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that she chews her nails. She was openly going to town on her finger nails while reading something on her mobile device. Clearly she lacks self-respect.

I wouldn’t want to shakes hands with somebody who’s a nail biter. Actually, another reason why I don’t like to shake people’s hands. Gosh.

Witch’s knee

Every bus route their characters. They are typically unpleasant people either in appearance or personality. The bus I take in the mornings had a couple of characters. There is one in particular who I call ‘Witch’.

She’s white and middle aged. She’s got tight curly hair and dresses her hair in some form of product that makes her hair appear wet. I guess so as to control the fizz factor of her tight curly hair. Her wet tight curls drape her head down around her chin. She’s relatively tall and though she’s not necessarily big, she moves with a lumbering awkwardness. Everything about her physical being droops. Her posture, her boobs, and her face. There are bags under her eyes and at her cheeks. She makes an effort to put on makeup though it seems to only accentuate her bitter face. Her use of eyeliner draws attention to her dull eyes. The color she applies to her lips barely helps to make them less shriveled and gives her face a grimace.

I’ve dubbed her as the ‘Witch’ because I can imagine sticking one of those costume witch’s hat on her head and she’d look perfectly as a witch.

So I got on the bus and there weren’t seats available towards the front. I decided to stand at the corner where the single seats meet the tryptic seats. The witch was sitting at the end of the tryptic seats adjacent to the single seat. I was carrying a bag in my right hand and holding to the overhead bar with my left. My bag was not even touching her and yet she was concerned that my bag would knock into her knee. She pushed it back. She even tried to hold it back. Then she tried to put her bag in between her knee and my bag. She then bitched about my bag hitting her. I told her my bag wasn’t even touching her. If anything, she was the one touching my bag and I didn’t appreciate her that, I thought to myself. She continued to bitch that I could stand anywhere else on the bus. I responded that someone was going to stand where I was standing regardless.

I eventually got a seat; the single seat facing the witch. More people boarded the bus and other people stood around the ‘Witch’. These people stood closer to her knee than I did but she didn’t say anything to them. Instead, she have them the stink eye. The bus suddenly slammed on the brakes causing those who were standing to fall forward especially those standing closest to the ‘Witch’. Then she was seeking camaraderie about the bus driver’s driving skills from the same people she gave the stink eye for standing around her.

The ‘Witch’ reminds me of another annoying character who rides the same bus who I dubbed, ‘Roll-y poley’. She was roundish in shape. Always unpleasant. She always sat in the first seat of the tryptic bench next to the door. That seat is great for exiting the bus quickly. The downside is that your foot/feet gets stepped on. Her foot would get stepped on at least once. At times she would call the person out or make a public stink.

Anyways, I digress. The incident with the ‘Witch’ makes me wonder that if she is so concerned about her knee(s) then why not take a seat where her knees would not be exposed to potential injury?

Rude Indian/Paki man

I was seated on the train playing my game on my mobile device. I was sitting next to the pole. There was a large black man sitting on the end with a small space between us. The seat was large enough to fit a petite woman, child, or a small man.

An average sized Indian/paki man got on the train and made his way to the seat between me and the large black dude. The seat/space barely fit him. He tells me to move over. No, “Excuse me.” He said, “Move!” And indicated with his hands to the space next to me on the other side of the pole. I told him if he wants that seat then he can move. On the other side of the pole were two large black guys. There wasn’t much room for a seat. They were also seated in a slouch position.

Basically, the rude Indian-paki man thought he could pick on me because I am not a large black guy. He thought he could tell me to move and I would move. He was wrong but that didn’t stop him from trying to continue to be an asshole.

So because I refused to move when he demanded, he tried to squeeze himself back and in between me and the large black guy. It didn’t bother me. He was the one who was pinched.

The large black guy eventually got off, and the ignorant rude Indian-paki guy slid over. An Asian woman took a seat between me and the Indi-Paki man.

And a happy thanksgiving to you, too, crazy lady.

I was on the bus this morning and this crotchety old lady was uttering obscenities for reasons I didn’t initially understand. Then I realize she’s trying to reach someone on the cell phone. It turned out that she was trying to call her husband who’s in the hospital. She’s upset that she wasn’t able to reach him and curses him off as though someone on the bus cared. As we got closer to the final stop, the old lady gets even more irate that she can’t reach her husband who’s in the hospital. She continued to curse and threaten her husband even as she got off the bus. As she disappeared down the steps to the subway, she threatened to kill him and make him pay for not answering her calls.

Yes, this happened today.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Either get out of the way or stop talking on the phone

This morning during rush hour, a woman was yapping away on her cell phone in the middle of the stairs going down to the subway.

This particular train station is a transit hub in that its the start and end of a popular bus line. You’ve got a flood of people either exiting or entering the train station. Standing in the middle of the stairs of this train station while on your cell phone is inconsiderate to people who are trying to get to work in the morning.

If you must talk to the person on the other end of the mobile phone then pull off to the side away from the stairs and finish your conversation. It’s just that simple. You’re not in the way of people and you won’t get bumped as people are rushing pass you.

Often times people who are on their mobile phones are so absorbed in their little world that they forget that there are people around them, and sometimes it’s not so easy to get around the cellular phone offender. Sometimes they even wander into people’s way when the other person is trying to avoid them.

Private lives in public spaces

As much as I would love to have Internet access while commuting by subway, I’d rather it be limited. Currently, internet access is available at certain stops along subway lines. It’s bad enough as a commuter who has to commute by bus and train that I am exposed to loud one way conversations of someone’s supposedly private life. I don’t need to have that follow me onto the train.

There is a growing number of people who talk loudly on the cell phone. It’s obnoxious. And it’s from people of all nationalities and age and sex though I have to say a majority of the loud talkers tend to be women and Hispanic. Sometimes there will be loud Indi-Paki women. Their voices also tend to be pitchy (no, not bitchy).

But I guess it is inevitable. Another behavior people will abuse while traveling via public transportation.