Pregnant and Pissed

We pull into St. Clair station and a very pregnant woman steps onto the car. “Get up!” she announces. “I’m pregnant; I’d very much like to sit down please!”. She is talking to nobody and everybody at once. She is waddling towards the 5 seated commuters nearest her, not even waiting for a response. Direct and commanding she’s like a sergeant! A few are startled and 2 of them jump to their feet. “Here, take my seat, ma’am” says a handsome lanky manboy. “No, this seat has more leg room” says a helpful young business woman, she puts her iPod away and gets up quickly. “Thank you both, so much” preggo says, carefully lowering herself into the seat and letting out a sigh of relief.

Now I will tell you what really happened. We pull into St. Clair station and a very pregnant (likely psychopathic) woman scrambles into the car. “Somebody get up NOW!” she screams as she holds the underside of her belly. I am already standing, so I am no help to her, and there isn’t water leaking or screams of pain so I’m assuming she’s not in labour. She looks about 12 months pregnant. No one looks up. Everyone is plugged in and in the zone. Some are reading the Metro, some are sleeping, most have their eyes closed and are bopping to their personal soundtracks, blocking out the crazies. She is exasperated and confronts a sleeping asian pre-teen. She kicks his skateboard shoed foot. He awakens, startled and sneers. “Let me sit!” she demands loudly and over-enunciating. He gets up, shocked and as he shuffles off to lean again the exit doors he mutters something in an unknown language that sounded like “Jowla” which I’m pretty sure means something like “bitch” or “fat head”.

I myself am 3 months pregnant and while I’m not carting around 4 phone books worth of extra weight quite yet, my legs are achy and I prefer to sit than stand, but would I ever attack a fellow commuter for a seat, a fellow sleeping commuter at that? Stay tuned.

Is That The Poo of A Rat?

I'm sitting and minding my own business, finishing off a delicious cup of strawberry froyo from Yogen Fruz when I spot a nugget of shit. Its sitting under the seat of the person in front of me. Now the lighting in a subway car ain't great and further more it was in the shadow of the seat, but even from a few feet away I could tell it was rodent excrement. A variety of possibilities went through my mind first. A chocolate almond? A kalamata olive? One of those soft things that covers the earbud piece of a headphone? It was none of them. I craned my neck and squinted, but stopped when I realized it looked like I was focusing on the man's crotch who was seated across from me. For the record I wasn't. I guess it could have been a chewed off piece of one of those candy cigars, you know? The black licorice ones? But I'm pretty certain is was mice droppings... I almost wanted to take my spoon from my now finished yoghurt and carefully lift the specimen into my cup for a more careful exploration, but I thought that might be odd and slightly disgusting. So I just stared at it for the remainder of the ride home and imagined some innocent person (most likely in flip flops) tucking their feet under the seat and being surprised by the smelly brown mystery smear that encrusted under their toenail.

The Newfie

So I'm sitting minding my own business and doing a crossword puzzle when out of nowhere a man actually says "I think 2 down is DADA". The clue is PC Food. "DADA?" I say. "AS IN THE SWISS CULTURAL MOVEMENT?" I ask, confused. "No - D-A-T-A. Get it? The computer eats Data?" Ah Hah! I get it. Of course. I smile and fill in the boxes. What just happened?

I peek to my right where the man is sitting and he looks to be in his late 50s wearing a Bantam team hockey jacket. He is smiling and leaning towards me, eager, eyebrows raised, grinning. "What else are ya' stuck on? I just love those things. Do quite a few myself!" Oh Jesus. I sigh put my crossword on my lap. This is it. The moment of surrender. The point of no return. You can either continue to do your crossword and answer with one word responses hoping he gets the hint that you actually don't want to engage in conversation to pass the time because you have your crossword to pass the time. Something like a "I''m okay thanks. Take care. Bye Bye then" would do in this scenario. Or - you can be a decent human being and humor the guy. "Bhutan locale?" I reply.

I can see my fellow commuters assessing the situation. They look up from their Metros, one lady even takes out her earbuds to eavesdrop. "How cute" I can hear them thinking. "They're going to share a puzzle now." We get to talking, I fill in A-S-I-A (how moronic of me!) considering I'm surrounded by their entire immigrant population - how could I have been stuck on that?

I proceed to learn all about this man's hobbies and that he's going to see the Leafs play the Thrashers and that his daughter is pregnant and lives in Newfoundland. Then he tells me that where he's from was actually a war town. That a German submarine was found in the caves in in the farthest inland port in Canada. That he's a first generation Newfie and that his parents are British citizens. That he worked for a company in Kitchener for 18 years. That he and his wife watched every second of the Olympics in their heated garage. That he once picked up a young girl who was a hitchhiker who was from Colorado and who said the Canadian Rockies are more beautiful than the American ones. The rest of this man's stories were endlessly entertaining and most of them started and ended with the mention of a big rig. I had to cut him off mid-sentence. "Buh-bye then. Enjoy the game!" I said as I made way to the doors. "Bye dear - keep up with your crosswords and don't cheat!"

Commuter Calisthenics

Everyday I try to hit the subway gym. You might be familiar with it. Its not a real gym that requires a monthly membership and is hidden through some secret door deep within a specific subway stop, but a make-believe gym that exists in the minds of some ingenious commuters. Ingenious-lazy commuters. Ingenious-lazy commuters, like me. You see, I don't work out. No treadmills. No elliptical machines. No public heavy breathing, schvitzing, and jiggling up and down. That's just not my bag. But since I love a butter croissant as much as the next gal, I do walk up the stairs instead of taking the escalator between levels on the subway system. I do stand the majority of the way to and from work so as to focus on toning my core (you really feel the burn enroute to College station where the train sways quite dramatically). I've calculated that its pretty much the equivalent of 100 crunches. I figure that I spend an hour and 20 minutes a day on either the subway or the streetcar (in bad weather, otherwise I power walk) so I might as well come up with some moves to pump up the jam. I've taken to walking to the end of the platform regardless of whether the platform is full or not (Its solely to increase the count on my pedometer). I've got exceptionally svelte wrists now thanks to having to balance my coffee from spilling for 80 minutes each and every day. My thighs are marble sculptures since I've been holding my purse between my knees (the floor is just too risky). But, by far, the most complete exercise one can do is hold it in on a packed street car. Think of it! People are squishing by you and attempting to pass by you in such insanely small spaces that in order to maintian any sense of dignity and not be sandwiched into a complete stranger, you are forced into a Lotus-like position. Yes, indeed, if I keep this up I'll look like Kathy Ireland in no time.

A Thank-You Note re: subway ride of shame home after st. paddy’s day

Dear ttc,

Thank you from the bottom of my green-tinged heart for getting me home thoroughly entertained and in once piece yesterday.
After two cold pints of smithwick’s and nary a bite to nibble, I was feeling pretty teetery-tottery and your shuttle services from The Unicorn to King Street W. helped me to make it home so that I could deposit my emergency-Burger King-stop-off-come-upchuck in my own bathroom and not in the Out of Order men’s stall at said pub. Thank you also for the Guiness-scented subway cars and fast, efficient services last eve.

I mention that I was entertained because along with my drunken ass you transported hundreds of fellow partiers to their homes (or to secondary, nay tertiary bars on their leprechaunian pub crawls.) I saw many oversized Kelly green, felt hats and some shiny brass buckles too. I even saw a drunk teenager's shelayleigh and boy was that a treat!

Sincerely,
Enya McEvoy