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Strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

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#1

Strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

This wasn't so much strange as irritating but today my friend and I were on the El and saw/heard a guy playing every single ringtone on his phone aloud for the entire train car to hear. lol it was pretty random. I also had a co-worker witness two people, erm, doing "it" while on the train (ew). I thought it would be amusing to read your funny/odd public transportation stories (I know you have them) so post away! :)
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#3

re: Strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

I've seen too many annoying or gross things to enumerate. When you're in a subway car, you really are a sitting duck. But what can one do? Taxis are too expensive and buses are too slow. But if the distance is not too far, I'll opt for the bus. Whether above or below the ground, though, the NYC subway is bad news.
#4

re: Strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

I know this is always a frequent occurance, but it was new for me, since I don't take the subway on a daily basis. Some guy was on it and begging for money. He just walked around ranting how people are always telling him to get a job and other similar things. Then they actually stopped the subway for a moment so one of the workers could come back and talk to him. I wasn't watching the guy, but apparently they stopped it because he kept pulling his shirt up, and he was asked if he was getting sick and to stop it, since he wasn't. Of course, the guy went back to ranting after we started again.

And then there were the guys who came on to play instruments, including a cello. They were looking for money as well.
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#5

re: Strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

It was a 90 degree weather day in NYC when I came down to see a Broadway show with my mother. We went on the Subway to go to Little Italy after seeing Young Frankenstein and saw this man covered in leathered from head to toe with a red mohawk wearing sunglasses and army boots only made for the gestapo. He was just standing, looking at nothing, and saying nothing (except mumbling some racial slurs toward a group of black people who were cackling throughout one stop). He never sweated whatsoever and as far as anybody knew was staring into space.
#6

re: Strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

Marianne, no, really? Begging for money, you say. Oh my.

The worst was the homeless guy with the large hefty bag who suddenly reached into the bag and started slinging s***-filled diapers all over the place. Thank God I was at the other end of the car.
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#7

re: Strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

I saw a naked woman calmly sitting on a bench at the 59th Street/Lexington Avenue station, while about 5 feet away two cops were putting on rubber gloves.

One St. Patrick's Day I saw a drunk business man type get the clearly mistaken notion that a child on the subway was the victim of abuse, which didn't sit well with the child's father who beat the drunk bloody.

I saw one guy going into grand mal epileptic seizures on the A train one day. The saddest part was that I found myself wondering if it was a diversion so our pockets could be picked.
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/
#9

re: Strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

I saw one guy going into grand mal epileptic seizures on the A train one day. The saddest part was that I found myself wondering if it was a diversion so our pockets could be picked.

Sadly, on my first trip to Chicago back in 1996, I saw a man having a grand mal seizure on the sidewalk in the Loop. Another man came over and appeared to be trying to help, then I saw him take the victim's watch off during the seizure and run off. I gave the police a description of the man, but he was gone in an instant.

As for public transportation, one of the most interesting events was on a bus in Chicago. This crazy guy was ranting quite loudly about all sorts of random stuff, much of which turned out to be European history of the Renaissance and Middle Ages. He was obviously quite smart, but I've a feeling he was a paranoid schizophrenic who had been without medication for a while. During these rants, he would suddenly shout stuff about killing himself and throwing himself in front of the nearest train at the next stop (though he never got off at any stop while I was on the bus). The idea of suicide led to his ranting on religion and philosophy and he said one of the funniest things I ever heard, "When I die, I AM going to Heaven and the first thing I'm going to do when I get there is slap the motherf***in' Eve across the face! We'd be livin' in Paradise if it weren't for that f***in' bitch!"
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
#11

re: Strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

I saw a couple making out on the F train. Then I realized that he had his hand so far up her very short skirt, between her very spread legs, it looked as though she was getting a pelvic exam.

Or that she was a Muppet.

Anyway, it was gross.
#12

re: Strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

I hate when people file their nails around me. The sound of the file is, to me, equivalent to one scratching a chalkboard.

On NJTransit a women was sitting diagonal, 1 row ahead of me on the end seat; more or less, I had a clear view of her. (The train was packed, otherwise I would have moved)
She began by taking her nail polish off with nail polish remover. She then took her sandals off and continued with removing the nail polish on her toes. The smell of nail polish remover really isn't great, especially when surrounded by it in a close area. Then she took out the nail file and filed both her finger nails and toenails as I gritted my teeth in pain, the whole time trying not to think of nails on a chalkboard.

So, stupid me, thinking it was done, watched her take out 3 bottles of nail polish- a bottom coat, regular color and top coat. I'm sure I wasn't the only one annoyed by the fumes.

Is there nothing else someone can do to entertain themselves besides having a beauty session in the middle of a crowded train? Maybe your life is extremely busy and you don't have much time to do your nails. But please, don't subject the whole train to horrible smells and horrible teeth gritting sounds!
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#13

re: Strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

Many years ago on a Chicago El train, a high-school aged couple were fooling around. He kept putting her hand on the bulge in his shorts and she'd giggle and pull away. Finally, she gave a wicked smile and started rubbing in earnest. After just a few seconds, he started trying to push her hand away, but all too quickly he had a big wet spot and the everyone around him laughed. As she said "That'll teach him!"
#14

re: Strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

A couple of times on the N I've seen a woman who basically looked like an old cat lady alternated sining and playing "La Coca Rocha" on a Calliope. On the green line there is a lady who puts on quite the show while begging for money. She crawls up and down the car begging/crying for money. One time she got into a car that another beggar was already in. The both tried to amp up their game in order to snuff the competition.
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#15

strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

rachel maddow fellating roger ailes on a downtown 4 train.
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#17

strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

John McCain with his hand up Sarah Palin's skirt, and Sarah Palin with her hand up McCain's ass, on the L train to Williamsburg.
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/
#19

strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

I was on a bus to Boston a couple of weeks back. During the bus ride I was sitting next to someone who took a call from his wife. It turned out that the phone call was the wife thinking that he cheated on her and was reading his emails to be sure. Of course the guy was trying to dig himself out of this hole. Well sure enough the topic of divorce came up and about that time into the conversation, another passenger from the front got up and almost started a fight with this guy because the passenger in the front didn't like the fact that the entire bus could hear what the guy next to me was saying.
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#20

strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

In the London Underground a panhandler kept shaking his cup inches from my face giving a wordsmith plea to everybody on the train car about his plight. He came off as a down on his luck type of guy but I can't tell crazy at a drop of tye hat. He literally followed me out the underground stop and two blocks because he found out I was American from how I talked and that I must have deep pockets given I am a tourist.

Updated On: 12/17/09 at 07:37 PM

#21

strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

You people really need to get a tazer.
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#22

strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

^ hahahaha!

These are some good (and gross...lol) stories! I have another short one. Once on the El there was a pigeon. It got on at Granville and off at...Bryn Mawr? Berwyn? They are next to each other so I don't quite remember lol it was rather random, though.
"You don't just stop posting horse s*** on the web!"-The [Title of Show] Show
#24

strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

So many funny answers! Once I remember I was coming back from the Gatwick airport in UK and I saw a person sleeping just near the main cabin. He was sleeping on the ground and almost everyone looked at him. He didn't look drunk or anything, that was so weird!
#25

strange things you've seen while riding public transporation

At least once every visit to NYC, I always end up in a subway car with a homeless guy sprawled across several seats passed out in a puddle of urine. I'm not bothered by homeless people sleeping on trains (they do what they gotta do), but the urine sloshing around in the plastic seats as the train starts and stops makes me rather queasy.
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian

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