Oh, the humanity!

Today, I am happy to say that after two months of commuting downtown, I have retained my humanity and have not become Asshole Commuter.

Asshole Commuter is everywhere.

Last night, I met one on the train. Two, actually. A Chinese woman was loudly shrieking into her cell phone (in Chinese) - that's #1 - and a man turned around to yell at her: "God, lady, will you shut up? BITCH." That's #2.

And this was on the Metra! The worst part was, I was asleep when the dude woke me up with that lovely interjection. Of course, he had no effect on the Chinese lady.

Then, this morning, I let someone walk past me at a sidewalk intersection, and apparently he didn't expect me to do that, so there was a little awkward moment of "who's going to go first?" Then he said, "What the f*ck you doing?"

Sigh. I was too surprised to even say anything back, although the fact that I didn't say turn around a drop a couple of F-bombs on him makes me kind of happy.

At least I haven't become Asshole Commuter myself - I'm still just Val, enjoying the walk to and from the train station; enjoying the buildings, and the anomalies, and all the things that come with commuting downtown, dazily minding my own business while complete strangers cuss at me for no reason.

Gotta love Chicago.