The scent of urine is everywhere. Walk onto any car of any CTA train and tell me what you smell. 99% of the time it’s going to be someone else’s pee. (The other one percent is generally their body odor or booze.)
I can’t wear outside clothes in my house. Maybe it’s because I live in a less-than-fabulous studio apartment with a day bed that also serves as uncomfortable sofa, but I refuse to sit on said furniture in any item of clothing that has touched a CTA seat, wall, or door frame without subsequent washing. I don’t need you to tell me when and if germs die upon transferring from one inanimate object to another item of clothing – I don’t want that shit where I sleep.
Glistening. My grandmother always said ladies don’t sweat. She clearly did not use public transportation in 90+ degree weather. I don’t know why I bother putting makeup on in the morning.
General humiliation. We were all so excited (a term I use loosely) about the upgrade of CTA stations. Elevators? Escalators? Digital clocks and train statuses? Marble sidewalks? How aesthetically pleasing! You know what isn’t aesthetically pleasing? The bruise on my ass from falling on said sidewalk in the rain.
Missed connections. You may know of my love affair with Craigslist and its Missed Connections. They are without a doubt the greatest piece of literature that the digital age has brought us:
Sexy redhead waiting for the bus – m4w (Northside)
You were waiting on the bus on the north side. I was the black guy in the black car. We exchanged glances and smiles. I should have pulled over to talk to you. Please respond with the streeet [sic] we were on so i [sic] know its you.
Redhead on the Brown Line – m4w – (Merch Mart -> north)
You boarded at Merchandise Mart, with red hair and purplish pink fingernails and headphones, on the brown line around 5:15pm headed away from the city. We stood close and exchanged semi-glances until I had to depart. I had on a light blue collared shirt. Would enjoy having a conversion and more eye contact in a non-crowded transport…send me a message.
It’s love! It’s lust! It’s entertainment! It’s never you or anyone you know. (It is pure coincidence that the two CTA-related posts today involve gingers.)
I used to live in Vietnam and whenever I talk about it, much to my chagrin, people will trot out their trite and cliched “Vietnamese” truisms, to the effect of “me love you long time” and the ever over quoted “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” Yeah, I grind my teeth through it, but the weird part is that if I was going to pick a smell that I remember clearly from my time in Saigon, it’s the pungent eau de urine during the dry season brought on by an almost criminal lack of public toilets in the city. So I feel your pain about the transit system but I’m going to be honest: As strange as it sounds, I loved Vn so much that I can get pretty sentimental over piss stink. Okay that’s my weirdness shared for the day. Off to make arrangements to visit Chicago and ride public transit…
Well if it helps at all the smell of Chicago is strikingly similar to the scent of China at times. I’d guess it’s a universal odor.