Public Transit

The most convenient staircase for me to get from track 1, section B of Suburban Station to the building where I go to class often smells like a toilet. I don't just mean it smells like urine; it smells a great deal like a public restroom. Apparently SEPTA tries to subdue the offensive odor of pee through use of some powerful cleaner. The result is a mix of human elimination and chlorine-bubble-gum. Each time the smell hits me, a kind of mild itching moves from my nostrils and through my cheecks, culminating in an electric plucking in the front teeth of my lower jaw. I don't know what is in the masking cleanser smell, but I don't doubt its deletirious health effects. Maybe one day, when I'm having a nose-hair transfusion, I'll recall those days when I smelled the unusual odor and the doctor will enroll me in a case-control study that, though it won't be big news to the average American, will be featured in a highly regarded occupational health journal.
Also, while travelling in Washington DC last weekend, I noted how fast the Metro trains go when they first arrive at a station. A sudden image of someone bumping me from behind made me widen my stance a little, hoping for stability in the event of an untoward event. Do people ever push other people? I know that suicides often occurred on the tracks of the elevated trains in Berlin. It seems so dangerous to have no gate or security webbing to prevent falling to the tracks. But I'm sure it happens. Sort of morbid, I suppose, but it came to mind. Maybe it's all this Halloween business.