CTA Red Line

The city of chicago's transportation system is a complete and utter joke. My first class was cancelled today and I was extremely overjoyed at the fact that I was able to sleep in for a bit and not have to worry about being rushed.  So I woke up, walked my dog then got ready for class and left. The bus I normally take to get to the brown line stop was slow and late at every stop so I walked up a few stops until it arrived.  Because of all the construction on the el tracks the trains were either extremely early or extremely late.  In my unfortunate case this morning my train was late so I had to wait for the next one which took longer than my app on my iPhone claimed it would. Let me state for the record that nothing is wrong with my iPhone app, rather that the timing of what the buses and el system claim are completely and utterly off.  So I have to sit and wait and watch all these other trains go by, and finally when one arrives at my stop it has to be held back because of the construction, and then slowly reaches to a stopping point and allows me to board.  The two stops I had to take from there to my transfer stop took for fucking ever.  Once I arrived the train I had to transfer to just passed and instead of waiting for a few seconds it just took off. And then another one didn't come for approximately 15 minutes! Once the new train arrived we went to the next stop over, and I wasn't paying attention because clearly the technology that my smart phone provides me is way more entertaining.  People get on & off as expected, and then the train doesn't close its doors rather it leaves them open.  Then we hear an announcement on the overhead stating, "There's a medical emergency, everyone evacuate the train this is now going south." So we all promptly proceed to exit the train and stand around on the platform waiting for someone else to tell us what to do. 

Let me also state for the record that I've lived in Chicago all my life but there are some areas that are foreign to me because I refuse to take a tourists tour of the city. I'm way too stubborn for that. 

So while I'm trying to map out how far away I am from school from the stop I'm at, I see that it's approximately 1.5 miles away and about a 30 minutes walk.  It is now about 11:08, my class started 8 minutes ago and at this point I am not yet too concerned about timing because a CTA official is telling us that a train will be arriving shortly so we don't have to do anything except wait.  Children are screaming, men of different races are staring at me and normally I don't care, I'm not racist by any means, but I hate when people stare at me especially when I wear sunglasses because when I go to class I wear them for specific reasons - them being to cover my face because I didn't feel like washing it or putting any make up on.  I wore makeup and styled my hair today, but I still didn't want to take them off to glare people down. Also - there were a lot of people around so there was the quick thought that I might have my sunglasses stolen by the shady people that were on this platform. So I left them on and just let one rip. Thankfully people moved away from me - all that damn pepperoni I ate last night killed my system so woohoo for meat that makes me toot!

A train arrives. Before we all rush to get on, a certain CTA official is talking to some unknown train driver asking him what direction the train is going. It comes directly from the city to the Addison stop, only for all of the people waiting there to hear that the train is going back South. After that train leaves two other red line trains going north towards Howard pass by but on the outer tracks even there is no train at my station. So I overhear an official tell some random bystander that there's a shuttle outside that will take us to the other stops. I run down there as fast as I can because the majority of people have not heard this announcement and I'm obviously SO ANXIOUS to get to class... only because we have a review day... but still at this point it is 11:48 I've been standing on this platform for close to an hour now and I am furious, for lack of a better word. When I get on the shuttle all these high school fucks are being loud and obnoxious and point to people and making dirty comments that shouldn't be repeated here. I finally got off at my stop and by the time I got to school I said to myself, "Fuck it I'm not going to class, I'm already an hour late and someone has taken my seat this will be more embarrassing that it needs to be." So I go to the library and just get work done there. My work consisted of me ranting & raving over the fact that I was late and was not compensated in any way. The situation was not dealt with effectively, officials continued to give out mixed messages and there was no one direct announcement about what was happening. Some dumb bitch decides to jump in front of the el at Bryn Mawr and kill herself on this fine Tuesday morning. This is what you do to people Chicago, you make people kill themselves because your transportation methods are horrendous and the debt is astronomical.