Unsuck DC Metro: Metro Huffer

Monday, March 21, 2011

Metro Huffer

From an anonymous reader:

I've lived in DC for a few years now and thought I had seen it all--until the morning of March 18 on the Red Line.

This particular morning was no different than any other until a woman boarded the train, though I don't remember at which stop, as I had my nose in a book, as I do most mornings.

The woman sat in the reserved seating and had three or four bags with her.

Though the weather was nice, she was dressed in a heavy, black coat with a large hood. I thought nothing of it when she first got on until I began smelling a terrible chemical odor--almost like nail polish.

I looked up and saw the woman, just steps away from me, huffing hairspray.

Though she was in a public place, she made no apologies for it and didn't even try to hide it.

She had a napkin in one hand and a bottle of Suave in the other, would spray the spray near her nose, and rub the napkin over her face.

I was stunned.

Other items:
Metro to spend $851 million in capital funding (Examiner)
Metro trying to lure bike-to-rail commuters (WaPo)

Comments (26)

Logging you in...

Dashboard | Edit profile | Logout

Logged in as

-12 Vote up Vote down

James · 731 weeks ago

I don't see how this is WMATA's fault at all.

5 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

+18 Vote up Vote down

Anon · 731 weeks ago

Dude, the site is also about how the riders (like this one) make Metro suck.

+12 Vote up Vote down

F'n JD · 731 weeks ago

Lack of police.

+11 Vote up Vote down

mert · 731 weeks ago

it's also not cool to expose others to the fumes from hairspray, nail polish, etc. but you can't expect much consideration for others from a huffer, who is working with few brain cells.

+9 Vote up Vote down

James · 731 weeks ago

That people feel free to commit crimes on the Metro (whether it's assault, theft, or drug use), says volumes about WMATA's priorities concerning security. The only thing Metro cops are concerned with is harrassing people they think didn't pay to ride the train (when most of the time faulty equipment is to blame). They don't seem to care at all about the other crimes being committed on their watch.

-1 Vote up Vote down

what now · 731 weeks ago

Did anyone say something to her? No. Did anyone call transit? No. But you can get on this Suck Blog thumbs up all day but won't speak up. Dam punks.

+9 Vote up Vote down

guest · 731 weeks ago

Gross and sad. I thought huffing was a thing of the past. Seriously, take your habit where it's accepted, like under a highway overpass, trailer park or abandoned building. Don't bring your nasty chemicals on Metro.

+12 Vote up Vote down

Corresponding Toads · 731 weeks ago

remember guys, it's huff huff pass. don't mess up the rotation

+11 Vote up Vote down

LalaDC · 731 weeks ago

Wow. I am stunned too. Is it bad that I'm laughing? I was on the orange line coming home from GWU on Saturday when a young man accidently stepped on a woman's foot. The woman started screaming that we are all going to hell and that we should go to jail for this assault, bla bla bla. I started laughing. What else can I do?

4 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

0 Vote up Vote down

Ummm · 731 weeks ago

He obviously was a racist.

+8 Vote up Vote down

Deja Vu · 731 weeks ago

Weird I had something like that happen to me too but on a crowded train at metro center. This woman who had at least a hundred pounds on me (188 lbs), push me up against a wall opposite the open doors as I repeatedly said I was just trying to get out of her way and I was hopping off the train. Ultimately had to half-push/lunge by her just to have a chance to get out and apparently stepped on her foot on a packed train. I was chased out of the car with racial epithets of "cracker" and "honkey" which left me cracking up (my family is Spanish).

+3 Vote up Vote down

LalaDC · 731 weeks ago

At least you were cracking up. It's either cry or laugh. I am laughing more and more now. But so were the others on my train.

+2 Vote up Vote down

Anon · 731 weeks ago

Exactly; nothing much to do but laugh in that situation-what can even be said/done?? Really, I've seen so much craziness on Metro 6 years of commuting on it every day that this post didn't really surprise me!

+12 Vote up Vote down

Orange Line Rider · 731 weeks ago

To be fair, I would go to great lengths as well to help myself forget that I'm riding Metro.

+5 Vote up Vote down

null · 731 weeks ago

After this morning's commute, I'd pretty much try anything to erase Metro from my mind.

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

-1 Vote up Vote down

LalaDC · 731 weeks ago

what happened this morning on your commute?

+4 Vote up Vote down

dan · 731 weeks ago

Anyone know what was wrong with the Blue/Orage Line this morning? I waited for 30 minutes at L'Enfant plaza before my train even moved. The first thing I did when I finally got to work was check WMATA's website. Of course, according to WMATA, everything is on time.

2 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

+4 Vote up Vote down

Orange Line Rider · 731 weeks ago

Smoke in the tunnels or something (a fire?), compounded by single tracking, trains offloading due to faulty doors and sick passengers.

+9 Vote up Vote down

Ummm · 731 weeks ago

So nothing unusual.

-3 Vote up Vote down

Geocentric Universe? · 731 weeks ago

Though this is a great blog, this post was a bit annoying.

"Though she was in a public place, she made no apologies for it and didn't even try to hide it."

Was the writer raised under a rock? His/her naivete was actually quite embarrassing.

Sweet Jesus! A drug addict didn't apologize to you, a perfect stranger, for their addiction and the behaviors associated with it? ("Hey I'm going to do a few cans over here if that's cool.") She owes you an apology? That kind of center-of-the-universe attitude is so very DC it's painful.

I hope the writer got their apology on the way out for having suffered so dearly.

In other news: young people use curse words.

5 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

+2 Vote up Vote down

LalaDC · 731 weeks ago

The post did not annoy me. It made me laugh.

+5 Vote up Vote down

Sam · 731 weeks ago

"Made no apologies" does not necessarily mean that the writer was seeking a verbal apology. It's a common phrase used in a similar way as "didn't care what others thought" or "only thought about him/herself". It's a very common idiom.

-3 Vote up Vote down

Deja Vu · 731 weeks ago

"Though she was in a public place, she made no apologies for it and didn't even try to hide it."

If that's the case then isn't that expression basically redundant?

+3 Vote up Vote down

Sam · 731 weeks ago

Yes. It is redundant. But that wasn't what "Geocentric Universe?" was asking.

-3 Vote up Vote down

Matt · 731 weeks ago

I am going with Geo too, seems like the author had some unreasonable expectations of drug addict. Basically someone acting as we'd expect isn't exactly mind-numbing.