The CTA brings us all together

I've lived in Chicago for almost 4 years now, and in the course of these few years, I've encountered some really interesting characters on the trains and buses. Some of my favorites are:

• Shovy lady - This person gets on the train around the same time as me in the morning, and I'm fascinated by her. She waits for the train to pull in, and then as it is slowing, she follows the nearest door to its stopping spot, where she aggressively steps in front of whoever was actually standing by that door in order to be the first one onto the train. I could understand this if the train was at all crowded, but it's early and one of the northmost stops on the line, so there are tons of seats...and she does this every day. I find myself wanting to thwart her by stepping in front of her and up to the door as she is trying to push through (I did this yesterday, which resulted in a grunt of irritation from her and a little inner "hooray!" for me. I shouldn't make a habit of this.)
• Petty lady - This is the lady who I didn't notice walk up to me because I was reading, and whom I only noticed when she started petting my head. I gently removed her hand, and she got the signal that she should go have a seat, so it was resolved easily enough. At least two of my coworkers have had similar experiences, so this must be a regular morning commute occurrence.
• Touchy guy - This guy was I think my first awkward encounter on the train. He started off by swinging around the upright pole and telling me I was beautiful...which could only be a sign that things were only going to get more uncomfortable. After a few moments, it was time for him to get off the train, but not before he attempted to caress my cheek in farewell. My flinching reflex was on it, though, so I only got knicked by his approaching index finger...I was relieved when he was gone, and it at least made for a couple of good laughs for the other passengers.
• Leany man - This guy sat next to me on the way home once, and as is the case for many commuters, he couldn't help but catch a few winks on the way. The problem is, if you're going to sleep on the train, you have to know how to keep yourself upright while doing so -- this guy had unfortunately not honed this skill, so he kept snoozing and leaning on me, then waking up when I would nudge him, then snoozing again and leaning again. And I don't mean a little lean here, I mean I was supporting the bulk of his torso weight. Weird.
• Off key cell phone singy boy - This guy decided it was appropriate to turn up his music on his poor-sound-quality cell phone speaker and sing along with it. Which is silly because of course nobody else wants to hear his music, and if we did we'd like to hear a decent recording through real speakers, probably on our own mp3 players, and then we also wouldn't want him to mumble loudly along. This went on for 20-30 minutes, I think, until one of our fellow passengers informed him of how completely inconsiderate it was. Oy.
• Scary cursy lady - This lady went off on a CTA employee, who had told her that she couldn't leave her cart in the middle of the aisle, where people would have a difficult time getting around it to get on/off the train. Simple enough, right? Apparently not...this little older lady let loose a 10-minute string of the worst cursing my ears have heard to date, basically attributing the CTA guy's request to racism and sexism. Mark and I were very relieved when we reached our stop.

I think I will leave it at that for now, because that's representative enough and I also have a meeting in about 4 minutes. Hopefully I won't have anything to add after my commute home today!