Thursday, July 26, 2007

Brown Line Stalker.

Have you ever felt like you are being watched, or even worse... followed? I sure have. And what is worse, I know who it is. It's the CTA. To be even more specific, I am being stalked by the CTA's Brown Line. The southbound train only, I have not problems with the northbound train.

Here's the scoop: I walk to work almost every day. Sometime I ride my bike, or skateboard, but mostly I walk. Since I am a creature of habit I tend to walk the exact same way each day. I walk under the Brown Line at Greenview & Roscoe every weekday, and when I do the Brown Line train always crosses over the track at the same time I am walking under them.

I understand that they have their schedules, and I have mine, and they are probably just crossing paths. So I started thinking this was a bit strange when it would happen at least four times per week, usually five. I mixed up the times I left work, by five or ten minutes. I would sometimes change my route to work, but still walk under the Brown Line at Roscoe & Greenview. Nothing changed, the Brown Line going southbound would still be crossing over the tracks when I walked under. Really. I'm not making this loony story up.

So you still don't think I'm being watched by the southbound Brown Line train? Back in April I was running late to work and when I was a couple blocks away from the tracks I thought there was no way this train would be passing by me this day... and sure enough when I was about a half block away the train was stopped on the track just waiting for me. Right when I walked under the train rolled ahead. Hello? Psycho train! The Brown Line does not run every five minutes, anyone who has had to wait for it can tell you.

I'm not sure what to do... what can I do? Call Oprah? Maybe. But now the story is out in the open, traveling the internet. Maybe now they will back off. And yes, it did go over my head when I walked to work this morning.