Showing posts with label petpeeves. Show all posts
Showing posts with label petpeeves. Show all posts

Get Yourself Together Darlin, Join the Human Race

, , , , , , , 3:00 PM | 1 comments

This dose of daily hell brought to you by the CTA

Chicago is thick with Crazy. Crazy in varieties you never imagined; Crazy you quickly learn to ignore because Crazy pulls punches and usually carries a bottle for smashing and throat cutting. So you do. You act nice and quiet and usually it leaves you alone. Because there is no way to completely avoid it here or anywhere.

The Red Line is a straight line between the extremes of the city (literally running the economic/social/cultural gammut from the cusp of senselessly wealthy Evanston to the bowels of the super impoverished southside, Murder Capital '08 and doing a bang up job this year too) and my/several million people's primary way of getting around. So there is never a shortage of batshit insane.
Going home after work today. On the train, over my shoulder, some fool is shouting gibberish. This is usually what's happening over my shoulder, no big deal. Everyone on the train visibly slouches further, pushes their noses deeper into books, casts their eyes out windows, turns the volume up on their IPods. Because this pained, drunk man can be ignored away if we try hard enough. Then he's hitting on some poor girl. Then he's wailing, over and over, "You've never had an ooooooOOOOrgasmmm" and launching into his qualifications to provide said item. His delivery changes in degrees from flirty (ha.) to adamant to irritated to fucking pissed off. By now, the other passengers are getting restless. The girl has split. At least one old woman abandons the train at the next station. I stay turned away, pretending to read but listening and on edge in case he starts moving from his end of the car to mine. (I took about 2 months of tae kwon doe when I was 10 and I was more impressed with learning how to count in Korean than mastering a round house kick. Skipped the warnings to carry pepper spray too. Haven't figured out if I'm a pacifist or just lazy...) In any case, physical confrontation was going to end badly for me.
The anxiety in these situations is about taking action; the fear is about having to do something in front of all these strangers. Sure, part of you is worried about getting your ass kicked. But its almost taboo to consider doing something outrageous on the train, even in self-defense. It's the unspoken etiquette, and I'm not sure I've ever prescribed to something so powerful without even knowing it. I'm not proud.
A man speaks up, not eloquent, not even loud. He ignores the threats. He ignores this drunk bastard calling him "Nigger," drawling the ugly hard "rrrr" at the end of the word. He even manages to shake this same man's hand right before security comes and escorts him off the train. The man who spoke up mutters something about praying for him. And I'm not even sure I believe there's something to pray too anymore, but I'm impressed. And I'm overwhelmed with respect. And I'm ashamed. And I hate to think of where I misplaced my humanity and courage in the last few years. But today, there was a man on the train smiling quietly to himself as we rode express to Granville. I'm thinking about him, at the end of the day, not about one more amusing/pathetic/sad tantrum thrown on the El.

Get your dog off my dog

3:18 PM | 0 comments



One of my big pet peeves, now that I don't have a yard, but a park out my front door, is when I have my dog outside, we are minding our own business (well, I am; Arlo is running frantic circles around me because there's another dog sharing his patch of grass) and some lady in designer pajamas brings her little shit dog over to say hello.

My dog will eat your dog, lady, I think.

But I say something along the lines of "My dog isn't always friendly with other dogs."

Now, we are all about the dog park and doggy socialization, but our dog isn't always on board. One of the deciding factors of living where we do was that there is a dog park just outside our building; Arlo can run around and we don't actually have to walk him around the city, which triggers some anxiety for him and almost-pulled-out-of-their-socket arms for Zack and I. But sometimes, and we haven't figured out what triggers it, he's mean to other dogs. He'll just snap, and not in a warning kind of way. He means it. Then we scoop him up and flee the dog park in shame.

So when Designer Pajamas looks at me with a sort of half-smile and bobs her head a little so I know she's heard me, then continues straight on toward us and lets her dog get all up in my dog's business, I get pretty irritated. I mean, does she think I'm kidding? I know it seems like Arlo is a big wriggling mass of friendly slobber, but he can bust out the nasty pretty quick.

While she allows her dog to jump all over mine, their leashes becoming a gnarled mess, I am glaring and muttering and trying to pull my always enthusiastic, sometimes snarling, 40-lb-beast off her little nitwit dog. Arlo doesn't do things halfway, so the leashes are good and tangled, and only as I finish pulling them apart and grab my handle do I realize that Designer Pajamas' dog has piddled all over it in fear. Nice.

Then, of course, Designer Pajamas yanks her dog and heads off in the opposite direction, glaring and muttering about how I shouldn't have let my dog get near her dog if he's not friendly. Or she slinks away and casts furtive glances over her shoulder as if we are wanted criminals and she's sneaking off to call the cops.

Dog owners, beware. And keep your dog off my dog.

**EDIT** I realized after posting this that I never clarified that Arlo is never mean or aggressive toward humans or even cats. Just the occasional dog whose ass smells bad or whatever. Didn't want to give the poor guy a bad rep!

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