Gummies and Orange Soda

April 16, 2021: Chicago, IL

I stepped onto the train this morning around a quarter to six. There was one of those single forward-facing seats – the rare space in which you’re guaranteed to sit alone, even if you’re inches from the person in the side-facing seat in front of you and the train is full of other people’s breath spouting from their protruding noses – open, and I strode calmly towards it. Great start to the trip. But somebody yelled: Woah! Hold up! etc. and pointed at the floor. There was a healthy pile of feces on the floor directly in front of the seat. What is this, New York? Maybe somebody’s guarding it for their return.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been on a train since the pandemic began. My Ventra history suggests I’ve been on a CTA vehicle of some sort for at least four trips just in the past 60 days. But this is my first time taking the Blue Line to O’Hare in about fourteen months, my first experience availing myself of the wildly convenient eleven-stop dart straight from the Western stop after Tess and I moved to the Wicker/Humboldt Parks frontier from our seventy-five-minutes-on-a-good-day bus-to-train distance from O’Hare Lincoln Park apartment. My first time flying since St. Kitts in February 2020.

And there’s poop on the floor.