So needless to say, the subway is an absurd place. Every New Yorker will tell you this. Most of us have a ridiculous tale.

If we weren't puked on, then we spent a whole ride in fear of being knifed. If it wasn't fear of being knifed, then we sat across the aisle from someone shamelessly smoking a cigarette.

We mean it. We've seen it all.

So, we're basically at a point now where nothing surprises us. Farm animals? Bring them on. Poop? Okay, we won't be stoked about it, but we won't be shocked. Fornication? Please spare us.

The point is, we've all seen some insane stuff. Read on to discover all of our worst experiences on the subway. Then, let's turn it back around. What was your worst experience on the subway?

---

Laura

“Sometimes people bring their pets on the subway, and trust me, I am all for getting to see an adorable ball of fluff on my commute. In fact, if more people could carry around backpacks that have puppies peeking out of the top, that would be excellent.

But I have my limits. And everyone take note: livestock is my limit. Once upon a time on the L train, a mustachioed man was calmly seated with a live chicken on his lap. Yes, a googly-eyed, scrawny, creepy-as-all-hell chicken.

Not just any chicken, this was a chicken that did not need to blink. A chicken that had no tact, no knowledge of the rules of public transportation, one that just sat and point-blank stared at me for eight straight stops. 

It made no sound, just occasionally twitched sinisterly like it was going to flap its derpy wings and launch itself across the narrow subway aisle right into my face and peck me to its heart’s content.

I might have gotten off a stop or two early.”

---

Amber

"I was taking the train home after a long day at work and a tough workout at the gym, hoping to unwind. I recently downloaded a podcast about the Salem witch trials (don’t judge me) and was pumped to immerse myself into the story. 

Just as the podcast was getting good, I got a tap on the shoulder.

Stranger: You coming back from a workout?

Me: Yep (while taking my headphones in and out of my ears).

Stranger: 'Soul Cycle?'

Me: What? (taking my headphones out again... this was a theme throughout this 'convo')

Stranger: 'Soul Cycle?'

Me: Nope, just the gym.

Stranger: Yeah, you look like you work out (while looking me up and down).

Me: Uh, yeah. Thanks.

Stranger: Would you want to grab a drink sometime?

Me: I have a boyfriend.

Stranger: Well, he’s not allowed to come.

(I leave through the closing subway doors and rewind the podcast back to where I started.)

Note to strangers: when people have headphones in their ears, they DON’T want to start small talk with strangers. I don’t even want to talk to my roommates after a long day, let alone a random man trying to hit on me. Can’t a girl just listen to her Salem Witch Trial podcast in peace?"

---

MJ

"Two summers ago, around three in the morning, taking the L into Brooklyn. 

Halfway down the subway car a man stands up on the seats, pulls down his pants, and takes a dump onto the subway floor. 

The poop fell so far, it was like watching a giraffe give birth."

---

Liz

"Despite the fact the MTA plasters its 'See Something, Say Something' all over the interior of its trains, I feel confident saying that no one actually does that. 

My guess is because we, as New Yorkers, 'see something' relatively abnormal on the subway daily; it's weirder if you don't, in fact. There was only one time I actually considered doing it. (Sidenote: Who do you actually 'say something' to?).

I got on the train at Astor Place and at 14th street my terror began. 

Someone got on the train who just looked... suspicious. He was disheveled, immediately locked his eyes on mine, and was constantly shifting his weight in that way you're holding something to your body and attempting to take the pressure off in some way. 

I'm seldom this paranoid, but for some reason I felt strongly like something was going to happen. I talked myself out of a few dark scenarios several times, all the while this person's eyes never leaving mine. 

By 28th street I was borderline in a cold sweat. I still had three more stops to go, which may as well have been an eternity to me then. I contemplated alternate routes I could take if I got off the train a few stops early, and then internally chastised myself with an internal monologue: 

'There's no way this guy has the bomb it actually looks like he has. Right?! Just breathe, Just breathe. Wait, who will watch my dog if something happens to me?'

He got off at the next stop. Nothing happened. The entire horror was fabricated in my head, proving New York can make you paranoid even when you swear up and down it won't. Dammit."

,

Isaiah

"I was about eight years old and my aunt and I were riding the N train across the Brooklyn Bridge to see Beauty and the Beast on Ice. I was as stoked as a little Disney nerd could be and was turned on my knees to look out the side window as the train continued over the rive. 

I noticed there were an oddly large number of boats on the river by the bridge.

Suddenly, the train jerked to a stop and I fell onto my aunt. A less than calm voice came over the speakers at once telling people to remain in their subway cars and to please be patient. 

Before anyone could really think, a woman got up and knocked on the conductor’s door to ask what was wrong, which was only a few feet away from where we were sitting. My aunt always aimed to sit in a car with the conductor if she was taking me on the subway.

The conductor tumbled out onto the floor, bloody and unconscious. It turns out that all those boats were part of a movie shoot that they were doing under the Brooklyn Bridge.

The conductor had leaned his head out of the his little window to see the action on the river below and one of the bridge’s iron beams struck his head and killed him. My aunt grabbed me and covered my eyes at once, but I could hear all the panic around me. 

The next thing I knew, we were pushing through a sea of people and police at the next stop. We surfaced from out of the station, and my aunt hailed a cab so we could make the theater on time.

But it’s always made me playfully wonder. When the subways randomly stop in the tunnel and they tell you to “please be patient,” what’s really going on?"

---

Jamison

"'College kids ain’t sh*t,' he said. I thought he was quoting The Wire. 

'You got yo’ degree, it ain’t nothin’,' he said. Then I wondered if he'd ever seen The Wire.

He cackled and shrieked. All of it, directed at nobody in particular, but I assumed it was for me. It wasn’t school work, but I had a notebook out and I was only one of 5 people on a 2 train heading uptown from Barclays late on a Friday night.

He stood there against the door just laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world. Maybe he was having as hard a time as everybody else was finding a job after graduation. Who knows? I was getting pretty good at running this whole unpaid intern game. Maybe he was getting not paid for nothing. 

Mom always said never engage those people. Unless you see something. Then you say something.

'They just ain’t sh*t. College kids! They ain’t sh*t!' he said. I didn't say anything. He got off at 110th street.

I saw him again the following night. Same time. Same route. Barclays to 138th Street. That time, though, he was completely silent. 

Maybe college kids ain't sh*t. Maybe that guy had never gone to college. Maybe he was going to college. Maybe he was an unpaid intern. You don't know these things about these people that yell to themselves on a subway. And when they get off, you don't know if you'll ever see them again. 

But then again, sometimes you do."

---

Brittany

"I once had a subway singer dedicate "This Magic Moment" by The Drifters to me, announcing to the whole train I was his queen. 

At 7 a.m. On a Tuesday."

---

Pete

"I have an extraordinary tolerance for bad smells, and an intolerance for enclosed spaces. I wouldn’t call it claustrophobia, but it’s close. So of course, when I see a packed train and one empty car, I, like all New Yorkers, know there’s going to be something bad happening in the empty one.

But I hate having a dozen strangers cuddling on me while I headbutt a disease-covered metal bar again and again. I’d rather just hold my breath between stops. So, that’s what I did. I got on the empty car that had a regrettably smelly dude livin’ it up, shoes off and everything, spread out like a boss.

The guy didn’t seem to recognize I was there for a few stops, and by then I’d gotten down the mouth-breathing/breath holding technique down just fine. 

But once the guy started running his mouth about how pretty I am, I had to bounce. But I was stuck on the A train between 59th and 125th Street, so this guy had a big chunk of Manhattan to just harass the hell out of me, to which I didn’t respond.

By the time we landed at 125th Street, I’d had enough. 

The guy was laying down again, mainly quiet, and I’d fully forgotten about the stench, until the doors opened and everyone waiting to get on took three steps back-- like they’re supposed to-- but not to let me off; they were trying not to get the stink on them, and that’s when I realized I had a 10 block walk ahead of me. 

No matter how fast I walked, I couldn’t escape the smell that was already stuck to my clothes. It was like he was following me down the street.

I felt defeated. It was like he’d won some game I didn’t know we were playing, and asked for my number plenty of times in the process, despite the fact the dude barely had clothes, never mind a phone. So now, I deal with the crowding, and if you get elbowed in the face, that’s your problem."

Check out 6 Worst Dates We've Ever Experienced. 

[Feature Image Courtesy FirstWeFeast]