Audio book takes over intercom at Toronto subway station

Rebellious accordion players, fights with live crabs, conductors who make flawless LEGO replicas of the subway trains they drive...

Say what you will about Toronto's public transit system, but the TTC is on fire lately — and only sometimes in the literal sense!

Subway passengers at Dundas West station were perplexed on Wednesday night to stumble upon an elevator intercom that had phrases coming out of it like "He checked Langdon's heart monitor as the young doctor spoke to him in rapid, fluent Italian."

A TTC customer named Michelle captured the scene with her phone.

hi your dundas west elevator is reading a novel or something. @TTChelps #ttc #weirdtoronto #wtf pic.twitter.com/xajN2j8i8H

— michelle (@seaofcakes) May 9, 2018

The caption of a video she later posted to YouTube, and then Reddit, was titled "TTC elevator reading Dan Brown's Inferno."

"OK I'm definitely going to need some backstory here," commented one Redditor in the thread.

"There isn't one," Michelle replied. "I was just sitting there and heard a man talking on a speaker so I got up to look and it was THIS."

Huh.

Hurry! Get out of the elevator! It's an elevator to hell! Aaaggghhh

— architectonik (@architectonik) May 11, 2018

Fortunately for our curiosity (and immortal souls), the TTC's official customer service account reached out to Michelle on Twitter.

Not only did the transit agency confirm that the book was, in fact, Dan Brown's Inferno, it took on the case of figuring out whether or not Dundas West had been possessed.

As it turns out, an employee was taking a break near the intercom speaker and "left a switch flipped" while listening to the book ... or so says the TTC.

Ok, I got in touch with a lead demon in the area, and it appears a ghost was taking a break near an intercom speaker and left a switch flipped - no actual possession involved. The situation should be resolved 🙃 ^RA🚀

— TTC Customer Service (@TTChelps) May 9, 2018

I mean, who listens to audio books without headphones? Or loudly enough that they get picked up perfectly, without the trace of an echo, by an intercom mic?

Then again, stranger things have happened. Did I already mention that live crabs were spotted riding the Red Rocket earlier this week? Yeah? Well, it can't be mentioned enough.

Crabs are to subway seats what Dan Brown's Inferno is to an elevator intercom: An unexpected, but delightfully weird surprise after a long day of work. A gift to the people of Toronto from the TTC. 

by Lauren O'Neil via blogTO