Why I Should Never Travel Alone; Ghost Story Edition.

And now, filed under Things Which Make Me Question/Hate Myself:

The other morning, as I made my way to the train- laden with bags and more than a little guilt at leaving my children for the weekend- I thought about my parents, whom I was excited to see. My kids, whom I already missed. The amount of work which might never see the light of day. My imminent flight sans children or [non-psychological] baggage, and the pressure I was putting on myself to just enjoy this, dammit.

So yeah, I was a little distracted.

By the time I was was seated on an orange line bound for Midway Airport, I was in a better place. (Mentally. The orange line is a little questionable.) And I looked up from my nauseating self-reflection (and YouTube videos) to see a man, seated across the train from me. He seemed pleasant. He had a nice smile.

And he had a hook for a hand.

Now. My mind went in all sorts of places- most embarrassingly the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, Volume Eleventy-Billion where the dude has a hook for a hand and it ends up on the car door handle and people are afraid.

And that is horrifying. For. I am a 32 year-old adult with a mortgage and children and a dental appointment already set up for six months from now. And not only should I be able to contain my immediately fearful response to cheaply penned ghost stories, but I'd also hope that I could maintain an appropriate facade in the presence of folks who clearly have bigger fish to fry than a gal emoting wildly before a solo weekend.

But the dude had a hook for a hand.

And it looked like a functional hook, the kind that could grip things and be a useful tool and scritch scritch scritch through the roof of a parked car-

I never claimed to be a good person. Or a sane one.

I am, however, extremely well-read.