https://www.kgw.com/article/news/crime/serial-sex-offender-jared-walter-arrested-again/283-14ed0f1c-6095-4744-bcab-b99f9c3deed2

What's wrong with people not understanding "headphones on = don't talk to me"? In my 20s, I was riding to work and some middle aged dude who was a regular rider asked me to be his Bus Buddy. I put my headphones back on.

...and another reason to not ride escalators. I have a huge fear of them.

I fucking hate tourists on the Metro. One, they always think they’re slick, sneaking in food and drinks. Which is gross. Two, they’re rude. They don’t observe DC and Metro etiquette.

That’s what I told myself, still it was a terrible experience.  I have bed bug trauma (long, sad story) and it took me a while to reframe it. 

I feel like if it was still warm on a cold day, and no one had immediately left the seat before you sat down, then it was probably hot coffee or something that had been spilled there. Hopefully?

I live in PDX. There is a dude who has been permanently lifetime banned from public transit because he would either masturbate at women or sit behind them and cut their hair. He did it multiple times, was jailed, was banned and then was caught again doing the same thing maybe ~10 months ago. It was really frightening…

NOPE. That is more disturbing to me than the time I saw a homeless guy shit himself. At least that was an accident. Milk guy planned that. Wtf. 

The make-up on the train women always fascinate me. Like how do you do that and not poke your eye out? Also I’m such a germ freak about putting dirty hands on my face (hello adult acne), no way in hell I’d ever do that. And those issues are secondary to “doing private things in public” anxiety. I just don’t get it. 

There was a body at the bottom of an escalator in the NYC Port Authority. We all had to step over it because nobody had arrived and it hadn’t been stopped yet.

Not as flat out disgusting as some of the others mentioned, but points for just being bizarre I guess...

Does a sensation count?  I’ll never forget the time I sat on a warm, wet spot on a crowded bus. It was a very long ride, and a cold day.  I figured damage was done, kept the spot, slid a newspaper under me and miserably rode home. Took an endless shower and cried later.  

I was going home on the DC metro with my friend after a night of bar-hopping. We had a 30 min or so ride, and it was pretty late, so there weren’t many people in our car. It was just us and this group of drunk dudes, like maybe 6 of them, in their mid-20s. They were fairly jovial and keeping to themselves until the…

Back in the late ‘80s, I was living in Collingswood NJ (just outside of Camden) and commuting to Center City Philadelphia on the Lindenwold/PATCO High-Speed Line.

This may stay in the grey’s but the most horrifying thing that I saw on public transport was something I didnt see.

I was in university. I had to go to Union Station to catch a train to get back to school for an exam. About a week before Christmas. 7 a.m. Snowing heavily. A few people in the subway car. Eventually they all got out except for one guy sitting across from me. He started masturbating as he watched me to see my…

I’ve lived in DC and NYC so I’ve seen a lot already.

I guess I didn’t think about that because I have kind of a schema for people smoking in public—I hate it, but it seems just barely socially acceptable enough that my brain doesn’t categorize it as “gross.”

There’s been a massive uptick in people smoking on the trains. Like anything and everything. Maybe not the grossest thing but still gross.

The grossest thing I ever saw is probably pretty similar to what a lot of New Yorkers have seen: someone just standing up and urinating in the subway car. Everyone moved away, got off at the next stop, and tried to move on with our lives. I fear a lot of the grossest stories are going to be fueled by homelessness and…