The ride home from work today was miserable. Truly, utterly, miserable. The worst commute home I've had, and I've had some really lousy ones.

The bus ride to the train station wasn't bad. That's normally pretty quick (only one stop), and the only problem I occasionally have is if the bus is delayed.

Once I got into the train station, though, everything quickly went to hell.

First of all, I missed the first train. And it wasn't a "oh, there's nobody at the train station, I must have just missed it" kind of miss. It was a "the train waited until I got to the bottom of the staircase to close the doors and drive off laughing in my face" kind of miss. About ten minutes later, when the next train came, I sorely regretted not making that first one.

It was short-carred. Essentially, the trains normally have eight cars or so, letting them span the full length of the station. A short-carred train is exactly that - it only had six cars. Which meant that all the people who would normally stuff themselves into eight cars during rush hour are now even more tightly packed into six cars, like sardines in suits. I cleverly was one of the first ones in, meaning I was against the far wall of the train.

Meaning everyone else got in after me, trapping me far, far away from the doors I'd need to get out of.

It was only a few moments later that everyone in the car noticed something foul - of course, after the doors closed. Standing in the center of the car, not far from where I was standing, was a homeless fellow who probably hadn't showered since the Great Depression. A hot, reeking vagrant (who was also drunk, just to top it off) in the center of a packed, un-air conditioned train car had people wanting to lurch very quickly.

And the stupid people on the train just stood there when the next stop came - none of them wanting to get out (or let anyone else out, like yours truly) because they'd have to actually wait ten minutes for another train. So we all stood there in the festering reek.

When we got to the Hollywood and Highland station, I was happy. Only one more stop, and I'd be out of that hellhole. The train started moving, picked up speed...

... and stopped. In the tunnel, under the Hollywood hills.

FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES.

The conductor mumbled something over the loudspeaker about a "disabled train", but nobody in the car was paying attention to it, since we had other things to worry about. Like our friendly neighborhood vagrant, who now saw fit to add to the stink by crapping his pants.

Let me repeat that, just to make sure everyone out there in readerland got it.

The vagrant who already smelled like hot death in the cramped confines of an amazingly stuffy and warm subway car trapped under a mountain shit his pants.

By the time the doors opened at the Universal City subway station, it was like a cattle stampede to get out of there.

I feel queasy.