PoliTech's Journal: I had the neatest thing happen on the train ride home

We had to work a bit late and my boss and I ended up on the 9:40pm train. We got there just in the nick of time.

Now it's the late train and that means its the "milk run", with the train stopping at every stop. (express trains during rush hour help make getting to and from downtown a lot less stressful and a little cheaper than driving, but I digress)

An extra twenty minutes of train ride, great!

So at the second stop two very inebriated gentlemen get on the train and proceed to "Loud talk" their drunken blather on the train. (train etiquette is to be a quiet as possible, think library) After a minute or five of having the honor of perceiving the dulcet sounds of their very intelligent discourse the conductor arrives to punch their tickets.

Now old drunk number one has a "ten ride" ticket with one punch left on it ... just enough to get him to his stop. However, idiot number two starts the old "panhandler" bit, telling the conductor he has no cash, ... let him have a ride ... Just this once ... I have to get where I'm going ... blah blah blah. This goes on as the conductor leads the gentleman to the vestibule.

After a bit of back and forth between them, the conductor tells the intoxicated chap that he will have to debark at the next stop. (No one rides free except for a few frailies, and most of them are too ashamed to use the free pass and they buy a ticket anyhoo ... and I say good for them! For not making me pay for part of their ride, but again I digress)

Then as if by magic our inebriated friend produced a handful of cash! My goodness!!! Why he has plenty of money to pay his fare. So he hands the conductor some money and blathers semi-incoherently that he just '"forgott" about the cash!

Now the conductor has to sell you a ticket. (this is a kind of old fashioned thing where the conductor punches the bits on the ticket that record the destination and price). He then gives the passenger a copy and he keeps a copy for the train company.

Evidentially our drunk buddy has never ridden the commuter train before and he starts yelling at the conductor about standing over him and being threatening or some such blather. The conductor (who you can just tell has had about enough of this guy) just keeps punching his ticket and gives our pal his copy.

Well now ... our itinerant genius calculates that it's a good idea to crumple up the ticket and throw it at the conductors face. (and yea he missed). So the paper is sitting at the conductors foot ... Drunk number one (who obviously has ridden the train a time or two) jumps down and picks it up!

Drunk number one then starts to try to smooth the crumpled paper out while blithering that it wasn't littering! (another no-no) Not litter! No! No! No! ... not at all ... and wow did the conductor know that even though the train conductor doesn't take credit cards (yea he asked) drunk number one has heard of just such a gadget ... blah blah ... really a valiant effort.

But the conductor has had enough and he tells our drunk friend passenger number two that the next stop is his last stop. And blasted passenger number one gets to accompany him.

Now they get mad

Drunk number one keeps on with "it wasn't littering" bit, wile drunk number two has the brilliant insight that the conductor was "eyeballing" him in the vestibule! A capitol offense if there ever was one!

The conductor tells him that if he doesn't want to get off the train, the cops will be happy to help him decide to do just that. Well drunk number two knows when he's being insulted, and he tells the conductor to go ahead and call the cops, he paid his ticket.

We get down two stops and once there the train waits ... and waits ... for the cops ... while the drunks yell to each other about what an asshole the conductor was blah blah.

I tried to take a video and that made a few passengers laugh, (it was getting kind of tense). My phone sucks, so no video sorry. But it did make some of the paying passengers smile if nothing else.

So the cops come on-board and after a brief discussion our two inebriated acquaintances debarked and were last seen standing on the train platform in the freezing rain arguing with a cop. (Fat lot of good that was going do, but I did get a laugh).

So my 45 minute train ride took about an hour and twenty, but it was entertaining.

I wish Illinois had concealed carry.

Excellent journal!

[mcgrew]

I'm guessing you're in Chicago? I don't know of any other city here that has commuter trains.

Re:

[PoliTech]

Yes mcgrew, from the western burbs to the Loop and back every day. Thanks for the complement in the title. I have been absent from the /. lately and thought this was a fun story and wanted to just let my few /. friends know I'm still here lurking.