The things you see on mass transit

I admit to having a weakness for tales of the odd things that are sometimes witnessed on mass transit. I just happened to be in the elevator earlier with Kent Zelas, The Times' assistant reader's representative. In a very short ride to the third floor, he spun a tale that I immediately decided had to be shared with Bottleneckers.

Hit it, Kent:

I see some unusual and sometimes unsettling things on the Metro, which I ride about two hours a day, but this was a new one, as the Blue Line was approaching Long Beach on Tuesday evening:

A passenger sits down in the row next to mine and plops a white 10-gallon plastic bucket on the seat beside her. It's sloshing with water, so I look up from my newspaper to assess the risk. It's smeared with mud and the water's a brackish yellow. There's also mud -- or something -- floating around in it. I glance at the passenger, a youngish woman, who's smeared all over with mud -- or something -- too. A streak across her forehead, and specks on her cheeks, but I don't look too closely because she's already made eye contact. She's smiling placidly.

There might be crawdads in there, or a recovered pet turtle, scrunched in a corner of that bucket where I can't see; I don't know for sure. But I'm thinking not, and I move to the front car, standing for the rest of my ride, joined by a migration of other passengers.

-- Steve Hymon and Kent Zelas

Photo credit: Don Kelsen / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Matthew]

As a transit rider for the past sixteen years, I, and others, will comment to riders that wet items are not to be placed on seats. this is particularly bad during the rains and novices think they can stick their wet umbrellas or wet hinies on the seats. That's a no.