I was planning on starting my adventure of reading A Clockwork Orange today – thought I’d take a couple days off from Ranting and this book has got some bizarre vocabulary, so it should be fun – and it seems that cannot be the case. You see this morning, I’ve been handed back to back reasons to have an episode and it’s not even 8 AM yet. Never mind the fact that while I was trying to put on a glove, and holding a latte, that I spoodged it all over my leather jacket – oh and yes, gloves; it would seem that 30-degree weather and a soft top, bare-bones Jeep does not easily offer warm hands on its own, so gloves are required in the colder months. And no, the latte was just a side bar of the day and no cause for an episode – it was just a funny glimpse into my starting day.

I get my latte rather quickly and hop back in the Jeep to head towards my train station – doo da doo, and I find myself about five minutes early for my train, so I’m sitting in the Jeep and listening to i-95 for a bit. About two minutes before the train gets there, I turn off the radio just in time to feel and hear a *thump*. I look in my rear view mirror and there’s a big ol’Lincoln that has tapped my bumper, with some older couple getting out of it. I get out of the car and walk to the back bumper and Lo! There’s a Lincoln held license plate that is currently up against my bumper! Some background on the Jeep – it’s the only car I’ve ever owned outright, as I usually lease or do the five year loan thing; typically with a loan that long it means I’ll last about two years before bailing on the loan. It’s a car disease that’s been passed through my family: my father’s side of the tree has it all over the generations and it’s in both me and my sister – we get bored with cars easily but are also very possessive of the car we currently have. Consequently, for me to own a car, without a loan or lease, is completely unprecedented and it means that I will protect this particular car with a small army and wipe it with a diaper on a monthly basis. You can imagine my thoughts at seeing a piece of shit Lincoln resting its plate on my custom tube-bumper (from Quadratec, $150) – “Fuckers!”

As the couple is standing right there and looking at me, I look up at them, after inspecting the bumper, and say to them both, “Yes, that is my bumper you just hit.” The woman makes a face at me and turns to walk away; the guy motions at the “no parking before this sign” and mutters something about parking, while he turns to walk away. To this I’m slackjaw’d. How dare these people think it’s nothing? What if I jumped on their hood and started to pee on their windshield, just because I was concerned about the lack of bathrooms on a train? Would that be OK? If their car is still there, when I get home I’ll try it – I hadn’t had the latte yet, so I couldn’t do it then, but I’m keeping that plan as a possibility! So, as they’re walking away, I walk to the other side of the Jeep to get my briefcase out, while the guy says something else about parking. I respond to this with “Yeah, all the more reason to hit someone else‘s car.” Would you believe that this arrogant Lincoln driving fuck has the balls to say “Excuse me? What did you just say,” with self righteous attitude and then take a step towards me? Can you believe it? I can’t. I glared back at him, looked back at my bumper and glared back at him. I can’t say what the expression showing on my face was, but he looked at me and turned back around to join his battle-ax wife in the coffee shop. Having been exasperated already, I heard the train coming, so I hopped up on the platform.

To further enhance the morning, I was treated to a scene on the train, but thankfully I wasn’t a big part of it. Just as I was sitting down and about to take my book out, a couple more passengers are walking up and down the aisle, past a guy that’s sitting in a single seat. For those of you that haven’t taken an MTA train, there are occasionally a seat or two per car that’s a single – they border the aisle on one side and on the other, a jutting out piece of the car (mostly for some engine storage space) so it’s a pretty tight fit overall. The gentleman in question is sitting with his right leg up on his left, so his foot is about two inches in the aisle. Now I’ve been the person in the seat and I’ve been the person that has bumped the jutting out person, be it an foot, arm, head or newspaper. It’s a commuter line, not a five day expedition, so there’s always different types of people using the train for different reasons. On Matinee Day in NYC, there’s always a lot of loud and boisterous families; the regular business people usually want to be left alone and sleep. Well, a fairly hefty woman is now chugging up the aisle. With all due respect to Chug-a-Lug, I’m no stick person; I’ve got some ton-age that I carry, albeit less that it used to be, so I know how narrow the aisle can be. When I bump someone, I actually apologize, even if it is their fault for hanging out over hir [his or her] seat; it’s just the polite and courteous thing to do. So Chug-a-Lug stomps past our guy in his seat, and obviously, as she’s challenging gravity a great deal, gets a bump from his foot. Polite apology? Nah. Glare and a stare-down? Nah-huh. Loud sigh and muttering? Nope. This woman whirls around and says “Why must you keep your foot in the aisle! Don’t you know how rude that is?!” Yeah, well, what does Miss Manners say about accosting strangers while riding public transportation? Wouldn’t that be equally as rude? You’ve heard that “stupid is as stupid does” and most days it’s gets proven; this is today’s proof for the theorem. That was bulk of the incident, as Chug-a-Lug then whirled around and stomped towards another car, stopping twice to glare at the guy in the single seat. As a credit to the guy, he just looked at her, and went back to reading his paper – never broke his stride, so to speak, nor did he move his foot. Of course my rather loud comment to the school boys, that were watching his in wide eyed anticipation, was, “If she wasn’t so wide, maybe she wouldn’t have to worry about walking thru the seats,” because I couldn’t help myself.

So, that’s my morning up to now. I’m going back to my Vanilla Latte and what songs I can wring out of my iPod, as the battery is mostly dead already. No moral to today’s stories, either. If you really need one, how about “Wise man never plays leapfrog with Unicorn,” although it’s more advice than a moral. It’ll do.