I've got a new foe. I haven't had many straight up enemies in my life. But there have been a few. There was a kid that used to hold my head in the snow in grade school. He wouldn't beat up my buddy because he had a protective big brother that would've killed him. I have no brother. So he concentrated on bullying me. In the long run, I feel it toughened me up. Plus, the snow facial probably helped tighten my pores. Little did he know he was helping me fight acne. In high school, there was a guy that was always threatening to shoot me, mostly because I was a smart ass. This was pre-Columbine, so I always called his bluff. Lucky for me, he was bluffing. In college, there was a crazy, angry guy in a wheelchair named Lil' Penny(yes, he shared a name with the Chris Rock character from the old Anfernee Hardaway commercials). He used to always try and cut me off on the sidewalk around campus. I mostly just tried to avoid him, because it's not a good look get in an altercation with the disabled. My new nemesis is the guy that works at my CTA stop on Saturday mornings before the show. The first train on Saturday mornings hits my stop at anywhere from 4:59 to 5:05 in the morning. I'm there every weekend at about 4:45 just to make sure I don't miss it. The guy working there keeps the door to the station locked right until the very last minute. It doesn't matter that I'm there week in and week out to get the same train. He doesn't care. He likes to lord his one source of power over me. It's not just pure cruelty that motivates him. It's also ignorance, as far as I can tell. No matter how much I plead with him, he can't seem to remember that there's a train scheduled for the top of the hour. He forgets every single week. It's quite frustrating. It's like playing "This is Your Life" with Charlton Heston. Last week, he didn't bother meandering over to unlock the entrance until the train was approaching. I ran up the stairs, just barely catching the train. That was a fortunate break. For had I missed that train, I would've almost certainly been jailed for assault and battery on a city employee. This all probably sounds slightly paranoid, the notion that he is focusing his torment solely on yours truly. But it's true. For two straight weeks in late August, attractive women with suitcases showed up to take the train to the airport. The dude immediately leapt from his perch to unlock the door. Well, I guess I can't blame him for that. They were both quite hot. Way too good-looking to not have someone driving them to the airport.
I guess I'm either gonna have to lodge a complaint or switch to taking the bus. Either option is probably better than punching him. Or maybe I'll just wait for winter and hold his head in the snow. I think he'd find that it can be quite refreshing.