My commute to work is a long one. If I drive, it's well over two hours each way. If I take the train, it's only about an hour and a half. Taking the train is the way to go because I can read, play games on my PDA , do some work, or even sleep. And of course, there's the benefit of not having road rage to and from work. Always a plus for everyone concerned.

The train is set up so that there are sets of four seats facing each other. Some have small tables in the middle so you can do paperwork and things. Not much in the way of leg room, but then again, I'm only 5'3" (on a tall hair day) so I don't require much.

Normally, I'm in a good mood when I get home after riding the train. I have time to decompress, and relax. That wasn't the case yesterday.

The train was crowded, but I found a spot with a table (generally not my seat of choice, in case you're wondering). I sat on the opposite corner from a guy seated next to the window. The train started filling up, so I scooted over to the window seat so now both seats toward the aisle were empty. In hindsight, I should have taken off my coat before doing this because once you're wedged in there, it's impossible to move much.

Two ladies sat down at the table. I'm guessing that they're in their early 50's and they worked together. The lady sitting diagonally had really thick black eyeliner on and it was all smeared. She also drew outside of the lines with her orange lipstick, and wore lots of really gaudy gold jewelry. I averted my eyes the best that I could.

Immediately, the painted lady started yacking. She started talking about things clear back to her high school days, still pissy about a grade that Mr. so and so gave her in her biology class 30 freaking years ago. She talked all sing-songy, drawing out and caressing her syllables in a way that drove me nearly insane. The other lady would try to say something when the painted lady went to take a breath, but then the painted lady would continue yapping right over the top of her. She'd even made a weird sound while breathing in, like she was saying "ummmmm" (I'm guessing so she makes a continual noise so her co-worker wouldn't interrupt.)

Then the guy across from me decides to lay back a bit and stretch out. His legs ended up over on my side. So now I had to bunch my legs over as close as I could to the wall and he was STILL touching me. I also started getting very hot because I didn't take off my coat.

Wouldn't you know it since it was the commute from hell, the train had to make a lot of stops for some reason (it ended up running about 45 minutes longer than usual). The whole time the painted lady is yacking, my space is being invaded, and I'm sweating like a pig.

Yacking, yacking yacking.

"... annnnnnnnnnnnndddddddddddddd, I think I'll put on red nailpolish tonight. Or, ummm, I dunno, maybe a frosted pink." "I need to go to the store and pick up some milk and butter, annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd.... maybe I'll pick up some bandaids, you never know when you'll need them." "Did I ever tell you about the time that I used a bandaid?".....

Her yacking kept going on and on, all sing songy and stupid-like. I'm surprised my ears weren't bleeding by the end of the commute.

It was hell.