Train, train, go away.

I love the CTA! Really, I do.

I love stepping into the dirtiest, smallest train station; paying just more than I would at Starbucks for my usual (venti, with room, earl grey, one bag, no honey), trek up the stairs and miss the train by seconds; then stand around in the beating sun (though it is only 7:20am) and squeeze myself on the next, already packed, train. I love it! Really, I do.

I have always thought there was something romantic about trains. I think initially the cross-country, turn of the century (20th, not 21st), Hogwarts-esq trains are what caught my eye, but those trains don't go to the loop. Everyday I imagine giving my case to the porter, when really my bag is laying on the grimy CTA floor. I fool myself into hearing “Cattle have strayed onto the tracks and now some farmhands are trying to shuffle them off. " When actually it is the, “The train has stopped momentarly, waiting for signal clearance ahead," recording.

On the train I can read my book, or sleep, or daydream, or talk obnoxiously on my cell phone; but so can everyone else - that is the beauty of public transportation. The CTA is a communal experience. You may not know your neighbor, you only weakly smile at them going to the laundry room; but you are instant friends the when the brown line takes the curve over North Ave a bit fast. When the two of you step into the train car and the bouquet of odors enters both byour noses, you are two peas in the same stinky pod.

You do not have the opportunity to create these relationships sitting at a stop light. When driving, you isolate yourself from the experience of society functioning as a unit. And though there are days when I crave to jump in a car, peel out onto a boulevard and do a quick three point turn, they are few and far between. I will always plead for the train to come again another day.

AK