Metra Spouses' Social Rules

My husband takes the train into Chicago for work every day, and after a year of people-watching in the train station parking lot, I can't help but giggle.

Most of the insanity surrounds the evening commute and the race to the parking lot exit. After an hour of sitting on the train, everyone wants to be the first in line at the stoplight. So they strategize, they plot, and they sabotage their fellow commuters.

Out-of-shape men sprint to their cars, followed closely by women lurching forward in spiked heels. They choose their parking spots carefully, strategically placed close enough to the tracks to cut their run-time short, but also close enough to the stoplight to cut off other commuters also aiming to be first in line. They always park in the first row, so they can pull straight out into the lane leading to the exit, and with their nose facing out. And heaven forbid you should be heading into the city yourself that day and you should take their parking spot out of ignorance. They'll give you dirty looks the entire time you're in their vicinity.

Once last winter, when the roads and sidewalks were particularly icy, my husband tells me that the conductor lectured everyone to not race to their cars, to be careful because the way was icy and dangerous, that their lives were more important than being the first one to the stoplight. Incredibly, most of the commuters that day actually didn't race to their cars. Most, not all. A few raced anyway. And the next day they were back to their old ways.

I've seen one idiot walk around the stopped train, hopping off the platform and crossing where there is no walkway -- only loose gravel and exposed rails. As he rounds the end of the stopped train, he blindly steps out to cross the second line of rails and runs the risk of being flattened by a train headed in the opposite direction. Dude -- is getting to dinner a few minutes earlier really worth risking your life?

But this insane race to the stoplight isn't limited to the people who park their cars at the station all day. It also extends to the Metra spouses who come to pick up commuters.

A few minutes before the train is due in, cars start to line both sides of the pickup lane, leaving enough width for about one car to pass through. The first cars to arrive take the choicest spots -- normal, right? Not so fast. Recently we've been getting the militant latecomers who think they're entitled to special treatment. They arrive last, pull into the space left in the lane for drive-thrus, and park, blocking everyone else's way and ensuring that they get to leave first. Rude, rude, rude.

Then there are the ones who parallel park in front of you and back up almost to your front bumper so that you can't get out until they leave. I've even had one of these turn off her car, get out, and go for a walk!

But the ones who really amuse me are the wives who drive a luxury SUV to the station to pick up their husband, jockey for the best exit position, then walk around to the passenger seat so that the husband can drive home. They leave the motor running and the driver's door open so their husbands can shave a millisecond off the time it takes them to get into the car and drive off. Umm, wouldn't it be faster to just jump in the passenger seat?

Most of the time I just sit back and laugh at these people -- they make for good comic relief at the end of a long day. But one of these days someone is going to get hurt, either in a car accident or in a stampede, and then it won't be so funny.