To get to work, I take the train to the city and then pick up a bus to my office- and then I do the opposite coming home. That's four opportunities for stories every time I go to the office.

Remember this lady? I use the term lady very loosely, by the way. She's a very rude woman.

She has always been very LOUD and wants to make sure that everyone in the area is paying complete attention to her. I don't have a big problem with that, because I can ignore most anything. I only have a problem with her when she's rude to people. I haven't ridden on that particular train in quite some time, and it seems that things have changed a bit.

There's a new loudmouth in town. The psychological study potential was enormous, and I was very sad that I left my clipboard at home.

There are four train stations between where I get on and the final destination, and lots of people start lining up to get off the train anywhere from 5-10 minutes before their stop. If the old loudmouth saw people in line looking toward the new loudmouth, showing even a hint of amusement if he said something funny, she actually said to them, "don't encourage him".

It happened time and time again. What a nut.

My next trip was on a bus from the train station to the office. I'm usually on the bus at about 6:45 a.m., so (not to sound judgmental, but...) it's a wee bit early for happy hour. I sat down and then very quickly, a VERY inebriated ::ahem:: gentleman got up from his seat and sat next to me (why? why do I attract the weirdos?). Thankfully, he didn't try to talk to me because his breath was AWFUL and it seemed that he had alcohol coming out of every pore. Blech.

After work, I hopped on the bus to get to the train station. There are several buses that go that way, and I sometimes forget the bus that I should avoid. That would be the one that goes to the airport, because it is very crowded. Yesterday, made the mistake of getting on that bus. I found a seat, but quickly the aisle filled up with people. It's important to note here that when you are sitting, your face is almost exactly the same height as the person's butt that is standing next to you in the aisle. To make that even worse, the man that was standing next to me kept bending over to get newspapers or something out of his briefcase, so I was continually getting a face full of his butt.

Yes, I turned away after the first time, but he still got me on the side of my face after that. YECH.

My last ride was on the train going home.

There are overhead metal shelves above the seats, so you can store things above your head. I can't tell you how many times I've bonked my head on those things, even though there is a message over the loudspeaker before each stop, "watch for the bins over your head when getting out of your seat" or some such nonsense. That didn't happen yesterday. Instead, about half way through the ride, my umbrella fell between the slats and bopped me in the head. It made a huge racket and everyone around me asked me if I was OK.

"Nothing hurt except my pride, people- so please go on about your business. Thank you very much".

As I write this, I wonder if that loudmouth lady was on that car if she would have told people to ignore me. After all, I did get a lot of attention over being nearly killed with my umbrella (said for dramatic effect...).