Bring out the Bitch Box....

Yep, pack away that warm fuzzy Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa feeling, it's time to bitch about something again. (I can hear Lea from SC giggling already - more on that later)

Another pet peeve....

An escalator is not:
1. an amusement park ride - we did not stand in line just to get on this roller coaster for a fun time
2. a respite option - I know you're a lazy fat ass fucker, but sleep and loiter on your own time.
(by the way, this goes for moving sidewalks too...)

Today I was coming into the Irving Park Blue line station and could hear the train coming. This has happened plenty of times. If I get in the turn style, walk up the escalator (walk, not ride) then I have plenty of time to walk to the train and catch the last car... no problem.

UNLESS... some blankity blank blank lazy blank blank stands on the escalator and (ready?) plops her purse on the rail, pulls out her check book and starts to write a check using the rail as a hard surface! Who the fuck is she going to give a check to at the top of the stairs, or on the train ride that she HAS to write this now?

I stood there, smiling, with one foot on one step and the other on the step above, (the international sign of "I'm climbing the steps but find some hippo has stopped to write a check in front of me so my progress is impeded" which normally, with the accompanying smile, results in the offending hippo moving off to one side so I can slide by being squished like a hot wheel through the turbo crank. But this woman, glances my way, then goes back to her check.
At the top of the stairs, she takes one small step off the escalator and stops so she can shove her shit back in her bag. By the way, there are 2 people behind me and there's no room to get by Gargantua while she repacks her Sherpa bag so we all kind of bump into each other while we're waiting for space.

Finally I say, in my ever so patient voice (giggle on Lea) "Excuse me please" and she turns, without moving, looks at me and then tosses off a statement so full of understanding, empathy and apology it should be written into the annals of societal peacetime. What was this speech that's destined for a Nobel Peace Prize? "Oh, yeah..."

She takes a step aside still cramming into her purse and I'm left to try running for the train only to see it take off without me.

If I could have gotten away with it, I'd have pushed her ass onto the tracks to teach her a lesson. But then it would have derailed a train (since CTA does not employ the cow catchers of the old west) and caused me further delays.