The Stinky Weasel

Generally, I love train travel. Recently however I had an interesting experience. I was on the Capitol Limited from New York City to Chicago. Everything was set to be a great trip. It was sold out so I knew I had to share a seat for the entire trip. This should not have been an issue in the least. Sadly, I chose a young man whom by all appearances seemed to be a fine choice. A millennial on his laptop, so he will not want to talk and will ignore me for the entire trip. Huge mistake.
First of all, the madness of the Stinky Weasel was not in his voice it was his smell. It started out slowly. I did not smell it at first. I then got a faint whiff as someone left the toilet and I thought, wow, I hope they dump that in Albany! Then it got worse every hour until it was overwhelming. Being an adult I did not say anything to him. It would be pointless anyway. So I thought I would try to sleep. That’s when the Weasel part of his name comes in. It seems that the Weasel is also mentally ill! He has a problem with passive aggressiveness.

Standard weasel behavior….
Slinky, sneaky usually feral…. but always entitled. He began to push me as we were sitting there. I was within my seat and my arm was not on the armrest at all. But he felt that he needed to spread out over the armrest and into my section and my personal space. So he pushed and pushed and pushed until I was bent over into the aisle. This was bizarre! I didn’t say anything to him because I was astounded and caught by a surprise. So then I pretended to be asleep and when he pushed I simply pushed back and pretended I was completely asleep and maintained my personal space by not allowing him to push me over. It was a weird and bizarre situation with the weasel pushing and me not moving and me pretending to sleep and almost snoring on multiple occasions. Never in my life have I experienced something so ridiculous! But there was no way I was going to let him continuously push me out of my chair. It was amazing that he was so entitled that he would do so. Interestingly enough, there was a situation on board where someone was having a similar problem and then went to the conductor and it got very loud. This solidified my need to just sit there and not be the one that went to the conductor because the guy was pushing me because I could just see how it would end up. I would complain, and then the weasel would say that he wasn’t doing anything, and then I would just be the loud crazy person that was complaining. So instead, I just pretended to ignore the weasel yet not let him gain any ground. He pushed and pushed, our elbows met evenly and I held still firmly and would not let him get very far. This went on for hours until he finally gave up and slinked back into his weasel hole. It was exhausting!  Well I hoped he would die or that the trip would end.

After about eight hours in to our 12 hour nightmare the stinky weasel scent blossomed and exploded into an entirely new aroma. The kind of aroma you might imagine would come from a dead carcass on the side of the road when it finally exploded and split open to spill its rancid organs across pavement or ditch.

At this point I applied another mask to my face because after all the rules on the train were that you must contain your face in a diaper the entire trip and they were really insistent upon it. The train police attacked anyone without their face mask. Good news! Because Safety First! *you know* but it also helped when I put a second mask on it looked natural.
So, the Stinky Weasel continued to fight for his self proclaimed turf – that was not actually his turf at all. It was mine. I’m allowed to sit inside my whole seat and do not have to lean sideways to accommodate somebody’s elbow. If he had been any kind of a human or if there was a conversation to be had then it could have been polite. A simple “excuse me, could you move over just a little bit?” To which I would have replied “No, this is my space. You may stay in your own seat Mister, you don’t get everything.” But being entitled does have its requirements. One is that your personal space must be surrounded by an additional bubble that no one is allowed to enter. (Often claimed by the entitled people as an extension of their personal space)

So as I explained in the past; age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill. So I just pretended to be asleep. Once the weasel poked me enough to determine that I was indeed asleep when in reality I was not he commenced to violently stab me with his bony little elbow to get me to move. In the beginning I was leaning over to accommodate the little weasel. I even adjusted to and adapted to and overcame the overwhelming unbreathable funk of the Stinky Weasel.

So I continue to fake sleep. He pushed my arm successfully across my lap with steady even pressure it was actually hurting my elbow. When he released thinking he was successful I just allowed my arm just quickky spring back in and then roll over and be more comfortable. Each time he attempted this maneuver I just got a little bit closer. After an hour, I kid you not a f****** hour…he finally stopped this maneuver. After accepting that he had failed he literally tapped his fingers for a little while. I backed off thinking he might calm down but no he did not. He was fully committed to owning space and I was fully committed at this point to prevent him from taking any of my space. At this point we were both going to die and I was not going to be the one that complained to the conductor.

Let’s keep in mind it’s a sold-out overnight train. Even if I went to the conductor and complained about this monster that I was sitting next to, it was impossible for me to move to another seat. I would have to get someone to switch with me and make a scene and so forth and I am just not a Karen. So the games continued. I was sitting on the aisle and stretched out my legs and set up everything and moved my tray down in front of me so that he would have to literally wake me up or climb over in order to get out. And there was no way I was going to budge under any circumstances after his recent behavior. So this put it up to him to actually communicate with me and say things like excuse me, can you let me out please? or something similar to being human, but no! The Stinky Weasel tried to figure out how to get out without talking to me. That level of passive aggressiveness is generally reserved for eight-year-old grandchildren. But no, here I am trying to enjoy my life and I’m being disturbed by this f****** idiot. But that’s okay because Stinky Weasel managed to climb over without touching me by lofting himself on top of the other seats! It was truly something to behold. The entire process took him at least five minutes of maneuvering and then he failed and almost fell into the aisle. Not laughing hysterically and continuing my quest to be asleep 😉 was very difficult at this point because I just wanted to grab him by the shoe, throw him in the aisle but no, I managed to continue controlling myself! (back to the age and treachery thing) Meanwhile the other folks in the nearby area have now identified Stinky Weasel as a nuisance and have begun to berate him… so he’s getting stank eye and communication from other people that are unrelated to my situation. There were mutters that he kept “pushing that lady” as they noticed that I had been leaning into the aisle to get away. Once he was gone I pretended to wake up a little bit and then say it would have been so much simpler for him to just ask me to move etc. and they were asking if the smell was the toilets and I explained no, it’s him, he must have some sort of medical condition. I don’t want to say anything of course to the personnel because you know he’s obviously retarded as well and that would be just rude to pick on someone’s mental health status and their medical condition. The people whose heads he trounced on his way out were ready to kill him. I wanted to watch.
It was interesting as I analyze my own personality as I was thinking about all the different things that I could do to this young man and where I can hide his body and so forth. The level of anger that I experienced was profound,  it is not a place that I  usually go. I don’t usually let many things bother me. So why this? After I analyzed every aspect of this situation….I mean questioning: why am I so angry? why does this bother me so much? Why would it bother me so much? And I guess the bottom line is that this young man without communication behaved very rudely and I was in a situation where I felt I simply couldn’t do much about it other than responding in kind. I did not want to respond in kind it’s not my normal behavior. I would have much rather just let out a big sigh and got up and moved to another seat and let him have his entitled little world. But I know it’s a train ride he will never forget because he thought he was just going to push me out of the way and take over all the seat and throw his stuff on top of me and I was just going to deal with that. I don’t know why people behave the way they do sometimes. I do know that I’ve never had anyone be so incredibly rude in my entire life or should I say at least not in a situation where we were both sitting, sharing a seat to a certain destination. I’ve been on a crowded train on multiple occasions and never had an experience like this. I’ve been treated better by prisoners on a Greyhound bus. But a Stinky Weasel college student on a train? Wow! Who would have thought? I guess I should have because his age group is notorious for this type of stuff. I should have expected it. But as usual I always give people a chance.
The perfect ending to the story would be when I reached over and pushed Stinky Weasel off the platform. Sadly, I have no idea where he went and I don’t care I just hope that Karma gets this b**** because pushing an old lady? What the f*** is wrong with you?

Well well well if it isn’t another opportunity for me to be the bigger person. Should I take it? I don’t want to take it. I want to be the smaller person. I want to spring up and be a Karen and scream loudly about being abused. I want to stomp and kick and scream and sue. That’s right sue! Sue everyone involved! The Weasel. The train company! Everybody because of my bad experience. I’ll claim that I lost my hair and my quality of life, etc.
But no, that’s not who I am. I chose not to fight about it because I didn’t feel it was worth it. My generation simply puts up with abuse. This young man literally pushed and bruised an old lady and I didn’t fight about it because I didn’t want to be called a Karen and I didn’t want to be called a Boomer and I didn’t want to be picked on because I stood up against abuse. That’s the way it is! That’s the modern America that I live in. People wonder why old people don’t leave the comfort of their house. The outside world is unpredictable and uncomfortable. This situation is a prime example of why. Just saying.

I am sick and tired of being sacrificed for a greater cause. So in the future I’m going to bring some peeps to beat up weasels in case I need them. And I have every intention of making sure that I tell the weasel story everywhere I go because people need to know that it’s not okay to torture other humans just because you feel entitled. I also think that people need to know that just because they’re on a train and they pay for a ticket and expect a reasonable and safe accommodation, it’s still a very public situation and it can go sour really quick.
It’s just not right! And I hope you people out there teach your children better than to treat other human beings with such disrespect no matter their age or social status. Stay aware and safe travels!

Peace out!

Grandma