PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION IS FANTASTIC. It’s good for the environment, it’s good for Portland’s infrastructure, and, in these economically catastrophic times, it saves us money on gas, parking, and insurance. There are countless other benefits—fewer shitfaced drivers speeding home from bars! The chance to read a book instead of gripping a steering wheel with inchoate rage! The fact that sometimes cute girls ride the bus! Like that one on the #14! Hi, girl on the #14!—so the last thing the Mercury would ever encourage is people riding TriMet any less. No. We should ride it more.
HOWEVER.
Sometimes public transportation can be—how shall we put this?—less than pleasant. Sometimes it’s frustrating. Sometimes it’s awkward. Sometimes it smells bad. Sometimes there are crazy people! Sometimes this one girl on the #14 is all, “Take a picture, freak, it’ll last longer,” and then your whole day is ruined.
When we asked for entries in our first-ever “True Tales of TriMet Terror” contest, we were flooded with submissions from Portland’s brave commuters (and some commuters who aren’t very brave at all, and some commuters who are just whiny little crybabies). Here are the finalists—including the very best one, which scored its writer $300. Hey, that’s enough to take a cab!
NO TICKET!
It’s January 31, and I want to go to the zoo. The bus pulls up to the stop and I flash the February monthly pass I just bought. The bus driver explains to me that it’s January. I go home and get 40 cents and return to the bus stop. The bus is 20 minutes late.
I take an empty seat in the back. Two stops later, a filthy, boisterous man boards. He chooses the seat next to me. He smells like cigarettes, booze, and urine. He’s in the mood for conversation. He begins to tell me a story about his old landlord, the government, maybe the CIA. It’s not very cohesive. Spittle is raining down on me, and the other people on the bus think that we are friends. The MAX station is a few stops away so I bid my new acquaintance adieu and get on the train.
The MAX stops on the middle of the Steel Bridge and I realize I need to take a shit. Badly. Fifteen minutes, and nothing. People are becoming restless. My bowels are becoming restless. I am a grown man. I believe I can hold it until the zoo. Another 20 minutes pass and I am not so sure.
I begin to pray. The train starts moving, thank god. I clench until the Washington Park station. As I’m about to disembark, a plainclothes TriMet officer stops me and asks for my ticket. I show him my February pass. “It’s January,” he explains as he writes me a ticket. There are no functioning bathrooms in sight.
I get to the zoo and realize I left my debit card at home. I have no money on me. Defeated and humiliated, I walk to Washington Park and take a shame shit in the bushes. On the ride home I smell like poop and no one sits by me.
Please run this story anonymously.
—Anonymous
CLIP. CLIP.
Last week when I was riding home on the #19 from downtown to the Eastside, through the music playing on my headphones I heard the unmistakable noise of NAIL CLIPPERS. I turned in the direction of the noise, and to my horror I saw the lady right behind me CLIPPING HER NAILS. ON THE BUS. Usually, I have no problem asking people to cease and desist activities that are horribly inappropriate to do on the bus, but the culprit this time was an elderly Asian woman and I couldn’t muster up the courage to throw her anything more than a stink-eye. Her manicure lasted at least five minutes, and I probably still have bits of her nails in my hair.
—Camille
THE ONES I WAS TELLING YOU ABOUT
A few years ago, on the #8, I rode with the usual crowd of high school smartasses, older working stiffs, and the elderly, plus a cognitively disabled couple I see regularly. Today, though, they were masturbating one another. The office lady sitting by me was beside herself at the sight of come on the girlfriend’s hand, post-handjob. Then the guy started rubbing his big old butt into his girlfriend’s crotch in a most rhythmic and dirty way, and the office lady said to her friend, “I must be mistaken. I did not go to the theater and pay $7, and yet I am still witnessing these things.”
I should have upbraided this fellow, or at least advised him that the bus is not the proper venue in which to spill one’s sweet jizzum all over the hand of one’s girlfriend, what with the inevitable collateral spillage on seat and floor.
A few weeks later, the couple was once more sitting in the back of the bus. Again, the guy was sitting on the girl’s lap; at one point, she squirted some lotion from a bottle onto her fingers, then slid her hand down the back of his pants. It looked as though she was lubricating his ass crack and possibly his holy-O with her cooling ointment. Then he started rhythmically jiggling his ass back against her crotch. A woman with a little girl next to her said something to the couple, scooted away a bit, made eye contact with me, and we both laughed nervously. When the bus reached the Lloyd Center, the usual array of high school girls got on. One who sat across from me started laughing hysterically at the couple, declaring repeatedly to her friends, “That’s the ones I was telling you about! She puts her fingers up his ass! She puts her fingers up his ass, oh my god, oh my god,” falling off her seat from the sheer force of her laughter.
—Swag
END OF THE LINE
As a non-driving baby boomer, I’ve been riding buses since ’62. There have been many memorable incidents: the 30-minute layover with the fat thug driver who told me women couldn’t be bus drivers since the bus would shake up their insides so they couldn’t have babies; being spit on, sworn at, and endlessly propositioned (I seem to be a “hot babe” to 75-year-old toothless transients); the suspected murderer molesting my rubber rain poncho.
The most awful thing, though, was getting on the #1 Greeley bus while commuting to work in the early ’90s. It was quiet in the mornings and there weren’t a lot of riders. When I got on, there was a largish, nice-looking man sitting in the very back—just an average guy, maybe on his way to an office job. I nodded hello and sat down a few rows in front of him. Within about five minutes, I saw the driver looking to the back of the bus. He pulled over, turned the bus off, and came back. When I turned around, the man was slumped over to the side. The driver tried to rouse him but couldn’t. The driver got us all off the bus and called for help.
It was my understanding that the man had, very quietly, died, all alone.
When I got to work, I was shaking, and tried to explain to a coworker how badly I felt. He said, “Oh, well, you know. Life, death, the circle of the universe.” I’ve thought about this many times. I’ve told my friends and family that whatever happens I don’t want to die on the bus—drag me off and throw my body in front of the MAX, please! In a just world, someone will read this and write in that this man really didn’t die. But in a really just world, I would have taken a sledgehammer and pummeled the crap out of my former coworker for being such a condescending, cold-blooded non-human.
—Casey
NOT SO TOUGH
I like to think of myself as a seasoned mass transit rider. I learned to ride the bus as a timid middle schooler on the mean streets of Tucson. I’ve ridden buses and trains on two continents. I’ve taken the trolley to Tijuana. I’ve encountered the sights, the smells, the invasions of personal space, the occasional death threat, and deaf people signing crude things about me. I’ve seen an entire bus co-opted by a pre-school field trip. I’ve had people on the streetcar want to talk to me about Moby-Dick.
Basically, I’m pretty inured to whatever TriMet can throw at me. Except for this one thing a couple weeks ago.
I had just hung my bike up on the hook on the MAX and was getting myself settled in. As the train pulled out of the station, I put my hand up to grab the bar overhead. My fingers immediately recoiled at an unexpected sensation.
Someone had placed a fresh booger up there.
Horror. True horror. And me without my hand sanitizer.
—Andrew Coltrin
BABY ON BOARD
Riding the bus home one evening, I feel nauseated from someone’s overpowering cologne that smells like industrial cleaning compounds. I try to hold my breath and make it to my stop without vomiting. I slide over to crack the window—only now, someone very large has plopped down next to me in the aisle seat. Something of theirs is poking me painfully. I slide over as far as I can, but they do too, and I’m wedged between the window and my fellow passenger.
I decide it’s time to move elsewhere. With some effort, I turn to announce my intentions. Next to me is a huge woman holding a baby in blankets—this is what has been poking me, as if it’s carved from stone. I’m concerned the baby’s head is being crushed, or its neck broken, and I’m still certain I’m going to vomit any moment. I quickly struggle to my feet the best I can, hoping she’ll open a route for me to exit. Instead, she shoves the baby onto the seat as I rise, blocking me in even worse. I turn to look at the baby and am horrified to see it’s a terrible shade of blue-gray and has been deceased at least a month. Panicked, I dive through a gap that has opened momentarily, race to the back door, and fall in a heap on the pavement to finally vomit. The bus pulls away into the night.
—Anonymous
HUNGRY
A gentleman with dramatic face tattoos and A Clockwork Orange-type outfit was sitting near me. I thought nothing of it. We’re all weirdos, and I’m not one to judge by appearances. But I did notice that he had a lot of open sores on his forearms. Open, sort-of-oozing kinds of sores. Then he started picking at the scabs on his arms. And he seemed to like picking at them, and got very involved. But picking at them with his fingernails didn’t do the trick, so he began using his teeth, biting and gnawing hungrily. Then he flung the scab detritus on the floor of the bus. And began eagerly, noisily sucking at the newly reopened wounds.
I biked to work the next day.
—Ero
EAST COUNTY
On one particular trip from outer Southeast Portland into downtown, I was awoken at 82nd Avenue by a commotion involving the bus driver and a rider who had taken a seat near me at the back of the bus.
Coming out of my daze, I noticed the man was cradling something in his arms. On closer inspection, I realized that the tiny head coming out of the wrapping in this man’s arms belonged to a raccoon. As this is not an everyday occurrence on the bus—even in East County—I took a greater interest in the scene.
The bus driver was yelling at the man to get off the bus, as apparently traveling with a raccoon is against TriMet’s policies. The rider was anxious to remain on the bus, so his initial line of argument for staying onboard was that this particular raccoon was dead, which was meant to reassure the driver and his fellow passengers that there was no problem. The driver dug in his heels, though, and stated that the bus would not be continuing until this gentleman and his (dead) companion got off the bus. In a huff, the man with the raccoon made a goodwill gesture by stuffing the (dead) raccoon into his large suitcase and then throwing up his hands as if to say, “There! Happy now?”
This did not have the desired effect, as the driver continued to insist the rider take himself and the (dead) raccoon off the bus. Finally, the rider exited, grabbing his suitcase, now containing the (dead) raccoon, as well as the large stockpot that he was carrying. I can only speculate on what relationship this item had to the (dead) raccoon.
—Eric Stoffregen
NOT THIS AGAIN
Even the most stoic of transit riders can have their foundations shaken during basketball or soccer season. The cool, clean TriMet trains become claustrophobic death tubes full of pre-game beer farts and hot Frito breath. One such night, I caught a modestly crowded 6:15 pm Blue Line MAX at the Beaverton Central station. By the time we got to the tunnel, the train seemed too full to accept any more passengers. Did that stop people from bullying their way in? Hell no! It was game night, y’all! As bodies shifted to accommodate more bodies, I found myself stuck between a Plexiglas divider and a woman with a seriously substantial, spandex-clad ass. I thought this was merely uncomfortable until, after three stops, the train hiccupped and the momentum pushed me into this woman’s butt.
I was literally, in between her ass cheeks. All the way in. Her butt just opened up, accepted me into it, and then closed around me. It was everywhere. I wasn’t aware that this was physically possible—and yet, here I was, inside of a fat lady’s ass.
When I “entered” her, I felt her gently sigh, as if to say, “Not this again.” I was jammed up there from Goose Hollow to the Rose Quarter, where she finally wiggled me out and pinched me off like a turd. I imagine she was as humiliated by this as I was, much like an uncomfortable sexual experience. We avoided eye contact as she flowed out of the train in a blur of Blazer red. As I regained composure, I raised my eyes to a young man who had been near me for the entire ride. He was red-faced from stifling his laughter having just seeing a grown human being squeezed out of a woman’s ass like big poop.
—Brianna Wheeler
And the $300 prize goes to Brianna Wheeler for her true tale of TriMet terror in which she was “squeezed out of a woman’s ass like a big poop.” Congrats and/or condolences, Brianna. Thanks to all of our other contestants, and all of our finalists will go home with some transit-friendly bottles of Purell.
Taking the #17 home from work one sweltering summer afternoon I made room for a disabled man in a wheelchair. He was not abiding by any of societies general standards of acceptable hygiene and was quite malodorous. This I could accept as a part of commuting by mass transit in a major city.
What I could not abide was him proceeding to remove his shoe and begin to feverishly scratch every surface of the cracked, Dead Sea of an apendage he called a foot. The diseased flesh fell like snow and piled on the bus floor like softly-driven wintery banks. Even the crew of crust punks sitting across from him watched in horror as he worked that greying stump from Broadway to NW 21st.
people are disgusting
Somebody tell the guy from the first story that you can get into the bathrooms at the zoo without a ticket…
What a great illustration for this article; it made me smile.
Tri-Met. It’ll move ya, sometimes like big pinched off poop. (^:
I’ve just begun reading these, having only finished the first one.
The first one is soo clearly, obviously fake bullshit – it didn’t even allow for a reasonable suspension of logical disbelief. If they’re ALL gonna be like this, then i’ll have to call FAIL on this entire article.
Disappointed, so far…
Vacationing in Portland last week, I rode them all… Red Max, Yellow Max, #15, #17, #75, the Streetcar. It was all great fun. Next time I may wear gloves.
I feel near hysteria reading these accounts. Dead baby? Dead raccoon? Oozing sore suckers? Yes, people, yes, I can believe all these things and more. Thanks for the amazing comic relief!
I ride trains and buses all around PDX and am amazed at how many profoundly rude people are in our “livable” city. Here’s some simple tips, folks.
1. Do not swear in front of little children. Even if you are a parent of said child. When you do so, you’re helping create yet another clueless semi-sociopath for the rest of us to deal with.
2. Do not assume anyone but you and your friends are interested in your sex life. We’re not.
3. That goes for your meth use, unsolicited views on the upcoming election and, well, pretty much everything you say in that incredibly loud profane voice you have.
4. If you have a crappy haircut, tatoos all over your neck, smell like weed and haven’t taken a shower in two weeks, that may be some of the reasons you find it difficult to get a job, not just because The Man is keeping you down. Please consider these facts when the transit cops bust you for riding without paying a fare and you loudly berate them for not understanding your plight.
5. If you insist on letting everyone know the lyrics to every stupid rap song ever written by singing them out loud, even in front of small children yet to be introduced to the wonders of sex and violence, do not be surprised if we all celebrate when you finally exit the train.
6. We do not care about how you totally kicked that guy’s butt, especially if you are now in your 20s. Please shut up with that story.
7. This may come as a shock to the men in Portland, but women get scared when you talk about bitches, hos, etc., so if you want the women on the Max to talk to you, you might consider saving that language for when you’re watching ultimate fighting with your homies.
8. Please note while you think you look fantastic with your pants hanging down, it’s not much fun sitting down in a seat that you just occupied, and it’s even less fun when we actually have to see your butt crack right beforehand.
9. Healthy young men and women, there’s a reason the MAX has a special seating areas for the elderly and handicapped. While we realize it’s important for you to play your game, check your texts, etc., listen to your music, try occasionally looking up to see if an 80 year old lady with three grocery bags falling from her arthritic hands could use that seat you’re in.
10. If you put your feet up on a seat, at least try to wipe it off before you leave, or, better yet, don’t put your feet up on a seat, it’s really not that hard to resist the urge.
About 1 out of three Portlanders were apparently raised by people who never interacted with other human beings, so I offer this in an attempt to help make up for your terrible upbringings. I love all of you, but wish more of you actually had a clue as to how your behavior makes life miserable for the rest of us.
Oh Boohoo. You folks don’t know commuter pain until you suffer under a few decades of riding NY/Nj transit. Ever have to pay $400-600/month to get back and forth to work? Ever ride in a subway car without a/c during a hundred degree day with a filthy bum masturbating on one end of the car and everyone else in the car recoiling in horror at the other end? Ever been in a bus traveling to NY from NJ, and been stranded for 3 hours on the bus as it sits in an endless cue to get through the Lincoln Tunnel? Ever have a train breakdown in a tunnel and you had to wait hours until it could be moved? Ever miss your bus and have to spend $50 to $100 on a cab that will take you 5 miles from NY to NJ? Ever have to spend twelve hours trying to find a variety of ways to get home when a major power failure strikes and takes down the entire transit system, and then to cross the river from NY to NJ you are forced to use the normally $3 dollar water taxi, but instead the water taxi crew has decided now is the day to charge people as much money as they may have in their wallets ($20 and up!)?
No? Yeh, I didn’t think any of you whining crybabies have ever dealt with those things. Now shut the hell up . Be happy you have a transit system that works and is relatively cheap.
To Baby on Board… I call bullshit
Or, a typical evening on the New York Subway. These are so adorable.
Oh, that’s right, because the NY transit is apparently so effed up and disgusting we should hold back on any complaints regarding Tri-Met. That makes sense. Let me guess, you’re also that douchebag complaining that the city shuts down for 1″ of snow and that “You’s guys should see it in New Yawk. You’s call this a snowstorm???”
I used to ride the Crime train from Gateway to Ruby Junction in the morning. I gave it up, I couldn’t take it anymore. Daily I heard the sad stories literally shouted into the phone of how he was screwed by his parole officer and he needed an alibi or the woman who screamed at her boyfriend for screwing her mom . I heard details of crimes and drug deals and how the clinic at 162nd was ripping off this guy. Especially bad were the perverts leering at the young girls.
Especially memorable was a “family” and a “grandpa looking” older man who got on the train. He had a small puppy with him in his coat. It was the cutest thing, anyway he bent over to put the dog on the floor and evidently he had forgotten the open can of beer in his coat pocket. As he bent over , the contents of the can flowed onto the floor and over his shoes and crotch. He recoiled in anger thinking his new little friend just went all over him. His wife?, rescued the little dog from a certain beating while several of us fellow passengers tried to tell him it was his beer he just spilled. It was all good, he had another.
East coast ass-hats aside, I think we all can claim our fair share of stories while aboard public transit.
The one thing missing from this whole discussion are the drivers and the giant turd sandwich they eat on a daily basis. Whenever I witness an “episode of terror” on one of my rides, I can’t help wonder how the hell the drivers deal with this stuff day over day. Then you get the right-wingers bitching about how overpaid they are and the grotesque benefits they enjoy. Hell, in my opinion, they deserve to make more than doctors do for what they put up with. They surely have more lives entrusted in their hands.
Bus operators… I take my hat off to you. You truly have a difficult job dealing with the public and your own employer who vilifies you to your public.
Not on the bus, but at my usual stop for the 8, this woman seems normal, and she just drops trou and pees on the ground at the stop, just like that. Gets on the bus, I tell the driver, who just shrugs.
She gets off several stops later, obviously without paying.
This isn’t as bad as what happened to my friend, who’s a bus driver in a Midwestern city. He tells someone not to eat a sloppy sandwich on the bus – the guy throws the sandwich at him and he gets hot pepper juice in his eyes.
Last week my husband got on the max to ride to work with a friend, a strange man kept looking at him and shaking his head. My husband just minded his own business, the man proceeded to shove his hand into his pants and started masturbating while staring at him…the joys of trimet creepo’s.
Yeah, i’m calling bullshit on ALL of these!
damosa hasn’t been around much to call bs on all these stories. I work for TM and have witnessed things I don’t even want to remember because it is so foul.
Though I’ve blotted a lot of Tri-Met terror out of my mind, using meditation techniques and alcohol, I just can’t forget the young woman on the Belmont bus who was methodically spitting sunflower-seed shells onto a growing, soggy pile on the floor. And, believe me, I’ve tried.
The asian woman cutting her nails must have been the person who I REPRIMANDED for such gross action on the #8 up to Pill Hill 3 years ago.As a part-time driver,I appreciate all the people who thank us as they deboard the bus.I am glad someone recognized the turd sandwich that we put up with everyday.
And here’s your illustration:
http://i.imgur.com/UF0Wn.jpg
I’ve been riding public transit in this sleepy little town for nearly 6 years, and i’ve NEVER witnessed any of the cartoonish exaggerations described in these so-called “tales of terror”, please!
Next, you people are going to try and tell me that 82nd Ave. is full of prostitutes. “Can’t drive a block without spotting one”, so i’ve been hearing for years. Give me a freakin’ break!
To “End of the Line” – How does your coworker’s comment make him a “condescending, cold-blooded, non-human?” He was merely stating the obvious. Any of us could all go at any time. We don’t really get to pick when or how. And if you were to meet the same fate, you’d want to be thrown in front of the MAX? That doesn’t even make sense and frankly makes you look selfish. If this were to happen, you’d be not only disrupting the commute of the still-alive bus riders, but the MAX passengers (and likely the entire MAX line) as well. Not to mention the extra time and city personnel it would take to clean up the mess.
I call bs on DamosA! Clearly you don’t actually live in Portland — I live near 82nd, yes, there are hookers here, and I found most of the TriMet horror stories to ring true. I’ve actually had to defend a mother with a baby from two creepy Yuppies who were berating her one night on the MAX, and another time had to back up a guy holding his baby from a creepy drunk who wanted to fight on the train. I’d say at least once a week I witness behavior that makes me wish I could never ride the train again. That being said, there are also some great people on it, who are polite and caring and know how to hold a conversation. I’m all for public transportation, but Portland has a LOT of people in it who feel entitled to being complete narcissists 24-7, and they make life a drag on a daily basis for a lot of other people here.
Jake, it might behoove you to consider that maybe – JUST MAYBE – every single woman you see in tight pants or a short skirt might NOT actually be a hooker. Would you at least consider the idea?
And ‘Other Portland’,
fine, i don’t live right here in Portland. What ever you say b/c you know everything, right? “Defender of Trimet” that you are. Do you have a cape to go along with that delusion of grandeur of yours, huh? Does the Commissioner put out the bat signal every time creepy yuppies act up on Trimet?
Hey Shellmee, re ‘end of the line’: it would appear some people do feel some empathy for their fellow man. When expressing some shock/sadness about witnessing a man die in such a lonesome way to the co-worker, and get the “circle of life” bullshit response does prove that co-worker to be an asshole.
We are all adults here, and intellectually we all know we can go at any time, but there is really no call to be condescending. I hope you can refrain from lines such as ‘you can still have another child’ or ‘you can always remarry..’ with persons close to you. Better yet, you probably should just shut the fuck up in such a situation.
As for interrupting your commute, I for one will never forget these folks:
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com…
St. Johns Flasher- I remember witnessing this on my way to school and being annoyed that a stupid prank was fucking up traffic. It was not until watching the news that night that I found out it was real.
And this is why I wouldn’t ride a bus with a lifetime free pass!!
I have to say that this crap about us having a prostitution problem on 82nd mostly means we need to educate … that the MAX station stairtop/bus-area is not a great place for a lady to find a man who can fairly compensate her for her services. Are any women doing outreach to make sure the ladies are at least independent and not under the thumb of any pimps who probably never suffer as much from the cops random efforts to scare these ladies into working elsewhere?