Stories from the CTA - Chapter 1... "Pretty Good Socks"

Thanks for coming back to "When the Law Fails!" Today will mark my first installment of a continuing series: Stories from the CTA. As always, all readers are invited to send me their own stories, and I'll post them up here.

So back to the point - everyone knows that crazy things happen on the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) buses and trains daily. The drivers of the buses, train operators, and CTA workers honestly just don't seem to care about what goes down! Oh well, it provides for humorous blogging opportunities.

So thinking back quite a bit, I remember a time about 1.5 years ago when I ran into a man that I affectionately refer to as the "Pretty Good Socks" guy. I was sitting on the Red Line heading northbound from the loop when a strange looking chap sat next to me and just sort of began to stare at me. I looked at him. He stared back at me. The tension in the air could be cut with a butter knife.

He uttered to me, with a raised eyebrow, and in a raspy voice, "pretty good socks." I looked at him inquisitively. He stared back at me, and pulled out a fresh new pair of crew socks from his backpack.

Now I, being a frequent traveler on the CTA obviously knew this man was trying to sell me something. However - he tried to peddle his wares by advertising them as only "pretty good"!!!!! Maybe if they were GREAT or EXCELLENT, or even just GOOD I would have purchased a pair.

So needless to say, I rejected his offer.

He countered. With Barbie printed socks.

"Barbie socks," again in the raspy voice. "Pretty good for the wife and kids."

Pretty good........... but not good enough.

Maybe you had to be there, but I just thought this man's attempt at selling socks was just really funny.