Public Transit Horrors
Arguments, fights, or just something weird and disgusting. There are all sorts of things happening on public transit that might make you look twice.
These Redditors share strange, gross, and concerning scenes on public transit that made them want to get the heck out of there!
1. Forbidden Readings
My first time in New York City, I get on the subway with my friends and a tough-looking guy with 3 teardrop tattoos, often meaning you have been to jail or are in a gang. He gets on and sits across from us.
He stares at us for a minute with this indescribable anger in his eye. He looks to his left and looks to his right as though he is checking for witnesses.
The coast is clear. Me and my friends are sweating buckets thinking we're about to get mugged or beaten up. We were so, so wrong. Instead, he nods at us, reaches into his backpack, and takes out a copy of Twilight: New Moon. Evidently, the movie was coming out soon and he wanted to make sure he finished the book before going to see it.
2. Ruffling Feathers
A guy was sitting at the train station waiting for his train. As he was waiting, he was eating a bag of chips. Eventually, he noticed a lot of pigeons were eyeing his chips enviously. So, he threw a chip out on the platform.
Several pigeons immediately flew down and grabbed it. Then he threw another chip. Having seen that nothing bad happened to the first couple of pigeons, several more pigeons flew down and fought for the chip.
The guy did this several more times, each time getting more and more pigeons fighting for the chip. Finally, the train came to the station and the doors opened. People got on but the man just continued to sit there. It wasn't the train he was waiting for. He had a truly brilliant and horrible plan. Just as the doors were about to close, the man threw the entire bag of chips onto the train.
The entire flock of pigeons, well trained by now, promptly swarmed into the train car furiously fighting over the chips. The doors closed and the train pulled away...filled with trapped and angry pigeons and commuters.
3. Meeting His Eyes
I was in LA as a tourist traveling alone as a small woman. An obviously homeless man gets on the bus and proceeds to stare me down. I was freaked. And then decided he wasn't going to win. I knew just what I had to do. I stared back. We have a staring contest and at the same time break stares and start laughing. Now we're cool. My pal starts silently passing out gum to the people across the aisle from him.
They try to politely decline but he just holds it out until they take it. And chew it. Another dude on the bus is feeling left out. He asks for a piece.
My new friend pulls the same stare down with dude while simultaneously giving gum to everyone else around him but the dude that asked for it. The dude gets really mad.
He then turns his attention to digging around in his bedroll. Pulls out a tiny live turtle that fits in the palm of his hand. A turtle. I moved to the back of the bus at that point.
4. Crying For Attention
I was riding a city bus to the university I was attending. It was early morning, right in the middle of the commute time, the bus was packed. There was a woman sitting with her son in her lap. Every so often the son would cry, and she would comfort him, lovingly. I thought little of this until he yelped more than cried. That's when I realized the chilling truth.
She was digging her nails into his arm, until he cried and then would comfort him. I have heard of parents hurting their children for the attention themselves, or to seem like good parents, I’ve just never seen it.
As it began to happen again, a homeless man got up and got right in her face. He said to her, "We all see what you are doing, but I am the only one who doesn't care what people think of me. You cut that out, or I will fix this problem."
He was right, people were too afraid of what would happen to help the boy, it took someone more removed. She stopped, and I do my best to deal with things right when I find they don't sit right with me.
