To the girl on the link this morning: You sat next to me at Mountlake Terrace and started doing your make-up, banging your brushes around, and getting powder mostly on you. Fine, live your truth. Check your look with some selfies. But when you started shaking an aerosol can of hairspray? Dry shampoo? Whatever the fuck it was, I was too shocked. There was no way, I naively thought to myself, that you have the audacity to spray a can of hairspray on a packed train at rush hour.
But you sure as shit did spray your melon-y garbage all over me and everyone in our car. You got off at the next stop (U District). It couldn’t have waited? Did you ever think for one second about anything other than you and your mid hairstyle? Truly, fuck you.
Do you need to get something off your chest? Submit an I, Anonymous and we’ll illustrate it! Send your unsigned rant, love letter, confession, or accusation to ianonymous@thestranger.com. Please remember to change the names of the innocent and the guilty.
Perfect IA, you deserve your righteous outrage, hairspray on a packed train? 10/10 I stand with you IA, a display of egregious selfishness.
The worst part of public transportation is that you have to ride it with the public.
Year ago, I was working at The Olympic Hotel, which had very strict standards for what sort of scent an employee could wear (musk for men, floral for women, very lightly applied). I had gone to the perfume counter at The Bon Marche over my lunch hour to buy some “Cool Water” (a fragrance I was partial to, back in those days).
While waiting to be served, a horrible person barged in next to me, grabbed a sampler, and doused themselves (and me) with Cool Water. I don’t know if they had soiled themselves or what, but it was crazy.
I went back to the hotel, absolutely reeking, and expected to be written up or sent home, but fortunately, no one noticed. I had to have my suit and dress shirt dry-cleaned (they had just come back from the cleaners), and it still stunk of that scent for a few cleanings.
That’s when I gave up on fragrances.
And yet, this being Seattle, neither Anonymous nor anyone else on the Link dared to call this person out… so for all they know/care, this IS perfectly acceptable behavior.
A simple “Can you not do that here?” would have done wonders.
I feel the same way about people who reek of weed.
It’s the primary reason I will not ride public transit.
Pardon me, ma’am. But would you mind terribly if I blew fentanyl vapors all over you?