The Cluster

I am privileged to host a guest blogger tonight...my brilliant, funny, charming colleague and friend, Monica. She is a writer/muser/rambler on her own, so do check her out.

For now, here are her thoughts/comments that relate to the general theme of this blog:

The CTA is a constant source of misery, entertainment and confusion for me. So I was thinking about something...

Let's call it "The Cluster."

Here's the thing, when you get on the train alone, you go for a seat that is as far away from others as possible, so that you don't have to sit with any of them. The next person who gets on alone does the same. Then when a group or couple gets on, they can't sit together because all of the seats have one person in them. So you have all of these people sitting alone so that they don't have to sit by other people, and all of these people who WANT to sit together who cannot.

Now, with most trains, someone is eventually going to sit with you. It is going to get crowded. Enter "The Cluster." If people would just kindof get on the train and immediately start filling up from the front or always sitting next to someone else, then groups of people and couples can always sit with their parties.

Logically, if you know that someone is going to sit next to you at some point, why postpone the inevitable, right? And by immediately choosing someone to sit next to on your own, you maintain the power!

By "clustering" someone else, you prevent someone else from "clustering" you! Likely, if you leave it to chance, you will be "clustered" by someone who is extremely unpleasant. They will be eating cured meats and barbecue sauce. They will have trouble breathing. They will be hot (in the warm sense, not the attractive one). They will cough. They will yawn. They will scratch and pick at themselves. They will do a butt pivot rather than stand up to let you off at your stop...

"The Cluster" is never gonna happen. If you randomly go and sit next to someone on an empty train, you will get punched in the face.

--Thanks, Monica!