What happened to NOT talking on the train?

On Tuesday, I was riding the South Shore out of Chicago. Anytime there is a Cubs game or any sort of event in Chicago (like the entire summer), the South Shore gets extra full and sometimes you can't get a seat until after the first stop... And the first stop is 20 minutes away. It definitely puts a damper on my train-study-time.

Tuesday there were a bunch of randoms on the train, so there weren't enough seats. I ended up standing until the first stop. I happened to be near a guy, about my parents' age, and an older woman. Things were quiet for the first 10 minutes and I enjoyed spacing out and staring at those lucky bastards with seats. So comfy looking. Then, the dude started talking to me. Darn it! I didn't have my friendly, please-talk-to-me face on, did I?

He started talking about texting and how he texted his boss and she didn't know how to get it. Then, he was telling me how his ex-girlfriend (who was also on the train) was texting him and started showing me the texts they were sending back and forth, like I really was interested. Then he started telling me about his house down on Lake Shafer (which is right by Lake Freeman where my in-laws live). I mentioned something about the sandbar at Lake Freeman and he said "Are you sure you don't mean Lake Shafer?" I abruptly told him I KNEW where my in-laws lived. He was annoying me and I was only being polite enough not to tell him to go f*** himself. The older woman was kind of listening to our whole conversation. She seemed rather entertained by it all since she could tell I didn't want to talk to this guy at all, but he wouldn't take the hint.

At one point, he asked me if I was married. I said yes. He asked how long, and I said 2 years. Then he asked how old I was and told me that I shouldn't have gotten married until I was AT LEAST 30 years old. I told him that I had known my husband for 14 years and not to worry, we'd be ok. At this point the older woman snickered out loud. (I WANTED to ask if being a 50 year old texting his ex-girlfriend on the South Shore made him a relationship expert.) And right about now, THANKFULLY, we got to the first stop and I was able to sit down and start studying. I made it off the train with only a few more "pleasantries" from him. As I was getting off in Gary, he updated me that his ex-girlfriend had texted him 9 times since he had been on the train. "I think she wants to get back together with me." Woohoo for you!

Man, I hope I can avoid that guy today!

Random thoughts while riding the South Shore...

Today I took the South Shore train into Chicago. I had kind of forgotten all the interesting people watching you can do on public transportation. Especially the South Shore!

~ I didn't realize that there was a third world country between Chicago & Valparaiso, IN. Wow, there are some rough houses along that track.

~ On the way into work, some women got tattled on to the conductor. Are we in 3rd grade here? Yeah, they were being a little annoying, but most people just give them a dirty look and move on. This guy actually used the button thing to call a conductor and had him go tell the ladies to keep it down. Wow.

~ On the way home from work, there was this woman in her mid-40's who was talking EXTREMELY loudly about her personal life. She had the spikey hair and funky glasses. I was sitting about 8 rows from her and still could hear every word of her conversation. I now know that she was seeing this guy and he lied to her about where he was going this weekend and it turns out he was out dancing at some club. And he likes skinny chicks and when they started dating she was skinnier, but then they started going out and eating out and she gained weight. Oh, and there is all sorts of drama surrounding their MySpace pages and what he wrote on some other girl's MySpace page. And then I got to hear all about her tattoo, the tattoo she wants to get (a Supergirl symbol) and the tattoos of almost every person she knows. Wow.