I like to read on the subway. Often, I do actual work on my laptop while I’m on the train. The way you might notice this is that I’ve got a laptop open and am typing on it, or else I’m turning the pages of some book.
Other people are sleeping on the subway. A telltale sign of sleep is someone’s mouth being wide-open, with drool extruding, while their eyes are closed and hir head is at an odd angle to his neck. Snoring is often going on.
Still other people (I haven’t asked, but I’ve been one of them from time to time) enjoy a quiet ride to do their thinking.
But some fucking braindead, clue-seeking dipshits have decided that various modes of behavior are entirely appropriate in close proximity to people reading, working, sleeping, and sitting peacefully. For reasons I am unable to fathom, these worthless sub-humanoids punctuate about half of my train rides with the following:
selling various unwelcome and unsolicited products, often of a candy nature, with the added quality of explaining at great length–precisely as if I give a fuck-- the name and purpose of the organization (school, drama club, athletic team) they’re supposedly representing and which, they seem to claim, will somehow benefit from the sugar-hawking. Somehow I think if I see a person walking from car to car with a sign around his neck saying “CANDY $ 1” plus a big box of various candies, I should be able to figure out their function without a single syllable being screamed at length into my ear. And if I can’t, maybe I’m too stupid to chew candy.
“Entertainers” who do pretty much the same, only they’re explaining their act, which is generally a high-volume, protracted bit of noise that I would walk out on A)if I could and B) would voluntarily surrender my access to even if I had just paid money to be entertained, which I have not. But my fellow passengers will often fork over money to these talent-free slobs foisting their egos on us, making me want to scream at them “B-b-b-but you’re just encouraging them. You’re giving the impression that it’s desirable to have this noise provided at random intervals without the benefit of actual talent. Don’t you see?”
fellow passengers conversing. Sometimes this is just your garden-variety on-life-support everyday conversation, usually at three times the decibel-level required, which is bad enough (“So I sez to him Do you want fries with that and he sez Yeah, so I asks him With ketchup? and he sez No, I want it on the side And I sez to him Ya want a big glob of it on the side or do ya want one of them plastic packages, I got both for ya–”) but the one I find particularly frustrating is the one where a youngish guy finds himself riding with a youngish girl, both in their late teens or early 20s, whom he doesn’t know as well as he’d like to, and has nothing really to talk to her about, but instead of just voicing directly his desire to rid them both of their clothing and copulate right there on the IRT–which pretty much everyone in car understands is the ultimate purpose of the conversation–procedes to talk about any old shit that randomly flitters across the tatters of his brain, in the vain hope that these revelations will make him more attractive to the young woman than simply keeping his piehole shut.
the same sort of quotidien conversations, with the addition of a cellphone. The few seconds of silence while the other person is talking do not, oddly enough, make this type of conversation any more palatable than its non-cell phone counterpart. “Ya, I’m just on the train. Nah, I’ll be there in fifteen, twenty minutes. [looks at watch] Maybe a half hour. Ya, sometimes the train stops in between stations, so it takes longer. Say, between fifteen minutes and a half hour, then. You can get me on my cel if you need me. Yeah, it’s same number as I had last time. So, how you doin’? I’m okay, it’s just kinda boring on the train, so I thought I’d call and say Hi. Okay, welp, I know, you know? I guess I’ll say goodbye, then. All right, welp, then, you know, goodbye, all right. Goodbye. I’ll be talking to you soon, unless I get off the train and see you first. OK, bye-bye now. Bye.” [dials another number on cel phone–GAHHHH!!]
The only exception I’m provisionally willing to make to my rule of Mandatory Capital Punishment for a First-time Offense of Opening Your Stupid Mouth while on Public Transit would be for people begging for change, and food, on the subway, mainly because their situation is dire enough to warrant the risk of bothering me, and my fellow nappers, readers, workers, etc. with their problems. For them, I’d allow an intermediate penalty of Starvation While Trapped in a Cell with Whiny Nonsense Spoken Incessently at Top Volume, out of sheer compassion for their self-destructive lifetime of behavior, but for everyone else it’s the lethal injection.
I commute to work for an hour and a half in each direction, and even on the other side of the world from you, we are blessed with the same delightful travelling companions. Not so many of the beggars, but plenty of guys trying to impress girls - normally half their age - who are far more interested in trying to put their makeup on without poking their eyes out.
Except for the women who giggle in response. Please, please can I ask for immediate torture to be inflicted on women who giggle before 8am? At least in my carriage?
And an equally swift punishment on the return journey for ‘terribly nice’ middle-aged women and their equally tedious friends who have spent the day shopping in town, seem to think think that their handbag is more entitled to a seat than I am, and who spend the entire journey moaning that the train has been delayed by a massive five minutes. Loudly. Continuously. And as if they expect any of us to respond.
They simply need to have their mouths sellotaped up.
You forgot the subway ‘philosophers’, who often identify themselves as Christians yet know nothing about Christianity. Warning: Do not take their lord’s name in vain in front of them. Not once has anyone but a born-again Christian come on the subway to give a religious spiel, which often turns out to be a hateful diatribe to anyone not born again.
But the worst is when you get two-three of these in a row. Candy, followed by ‘entertainment’, followed by witnessing. And people wonder why there is violence in the subway…
One solution might be to broadcast a signal throughout the whole train, a tone so loud and piercing that no one can hear anything else. That way, people who think their phone calls are as important as other people’s books and crossword puzzels will have no advantage.
I got one of these the other day who told me (apropos of nothing, mind you) in portentous tones that it was “a good thing to read books about the UN. The UN’s day is coming, and it will be a very important factor in the future of the world.” He then went off a bit on how Kofi Annan was up to something possibly involving lizards. I couldn’t tell if he was pro- or anti-lizard, but he did like to whistle a lot. It was all very strange, and he had a beard. The only thing I could possibly have been doing to set him off was reading my book. Not much of a connection there for free-form scat conspiracy theorising, but that’s talent for you, I guess.
People selling batteries. Is that just a New York subway thing? This one guy has a whole spiel that I heard twice a day for a year, “Not Dynacell, not Powercell, but genuine Duracell. The copper top. The one that beats the bunny, folks…”
So you want a quiet train? Sigh I’d be happy if the library was quiet. But noooo. There’s always some bitch with a phone. The trains I get are usually more quiet.
I’ve always felt that I’m letting down the side by wearing a beard and not being unusually eccentric. I’ve tried to be eccentric - I really have. Unfortunately, the only person I’ve ever convinced of it is my ex-wife.
You have to perfect the skill of appearing to be in a kind of fugue state.
It usually involves staring intently at a point in the middle distance and zoning out your surroundings, to the point where only a loud explosion (and the train stopping at your station) would shake you from your trance.
I got very good at it on Dublin buses, ignoring the drunken old men, stoned youths and crying infants while staring intently out the window and thinking about nothing in particular.
But then irishfella has to tap me on the shoulder if he wants my attention while I’m reading or watching tv. I have a really good attention span and can focus on what I’m doing to the exclusion of everything else.
I’ve often thought that the best beards are worn in an understated manner - no pretension, no “hey, look at me - I’ve got a beard!” A beard should speak for itself, and I think these wacky-go-lucky charlatans are bringing down the whole tone.
That said, it couldn’t hurt to take up pipe-smoking and occasionally intone the word “indeed” in a meaningful manner.
While I agree with the complaints of the OP I must chastise pseudotriton ruber ruber for some cavalier use of the English language. In much the same way that George on Seinfeld wanted to pretend to be an architect I was always taken with the job of extruder operator - what the hell is an extruder and how do you extrude something. So I went to a factory and found out. Extruding is shaping rubber, metal or plastic by forcing it under pressure through a die. So while drool may be drooling I don’t believe it is extruded. I make no apologies for my pedantry and I can now die a happy man - that day I visited the factory in Gladesville was not wasted.
"Dear Penthouse Forum: Like most of your readers, I always figured these letters were made up, but something happened to me recently that I just had to share.
"One sunny afternoon, I got onto the bus. I immediately laid eyes on two of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen in my life. They were probably 18 or 19 years old, blonde, and had bodies that wouldn’t quit. They had supple, heaving breasts, pouty lips, and nice rounds asses. My cock stood at attention and was throbbing and pounding. Now normally, girls like this would pay no attention to a guy like me, but these girls gave me a smile and a wave. When I smiled back, they came right up to me and said hello. We then struck up a conversation, and I found out that their names were Tiffany and Desiree. And man, were they ever into me!
"They got friendlier and friendlier. I couldn’t believe my luck! Finally, they asked me if I had any plans for that evening. I almost said ‘Yes, I believe I will be living out every man’s ultimate sexual fantasy’, but all I managed to say was ‘I’m free, what did you have in mind?’
“Bosoms heaving and nipples hardening, they puckered their pouty lips and asked ‘Want to do something fun with us?’ Uh, does the Pope shit in the woods? Of course I want to have hot monkey sex with your naked young nubile selves. ‘Fantastic!’, they exclaimed, giggling like schoolgirls. ‘We’re going to a Bible study group! You can come along and atone for your wicked sinful ways!’”
Many of the behaviors you described are annoying, yes. But public transport is not a no-talking space. Conversations, cell-phone or otherwise, are perfectly appropriate, as long as they’re not disruptive.
tdn, is the implication there that witnessing doesn’t occur on public transportation? I’ll corroborate if necessary.
I have the Jews for Jesus handing out stuff (they’re quiet, to their credit), and then when I get to the platform, I have the “Jesus screamers”, whose name is pretty self-explanatory. Then, on the train, I have the guy handing out sandwiches to the hungry, collecting money for the hungry, and then, when he is finished with that he transforms into a Jesus Screamer. On the other side of the journey, I have people handing out The Watchtower. I’m not sure what denomination they are, but they (also to their credit) are also quiet.
This is not occaisionally. This is every day on the A train in NYC.
I agree - fugue state on the DART is always a good idea, especially at Kilbarrack when the schools let out and the carriage is immediately thronged with crazed children possessed with the souls of angry, drunken sailors - law, how they can curse!
Of course, it’s kind of amusing to listen in on their conversations and then compare them to the kids that got on board, Southside. Like a whole different world…
No, the implication was that what I thought was going to be great sex of the magnitude rarely even considered in the wildest of fantasies turned out to be, in fact, witnessing. What I posted was a (mostly) true story.
However, I haven’t seen a good witnessing on public transportation in a long time. Maybe I’m taking all the wrong trains. But years ago (maybe 20?), Bible Study encounters like this happened all the time, though not usually in such a buxom way. I guess that they don’t do that particular style of witnessing as much these days. Or maybe I’m not seen as such a vulnerable “mark” anymore.
The one time such an encounter really bothered me (other than when my balls turned instantly blue) was when a guy cornered me on a very very crowded train. I couldn’t get away from the guy. When I told him I wasn’t interested, he kept pressing me. He asked such things as “Don’t you think going to Hell is going to be bad?”, and “Why wouldn’t you care about you soul?” He wouldn’t let up. Nine stops, and I was getting the 3rd degree the whole way. Had there not been so many witnesses, I would have kicked him in the shin.
I don’t mind the platform screamers. But, I do mind the guy on the train. Basically, I’m captive at that point. Plus, I’m fairly certain that it’s just a scam (much like all the teenagers selling candy “For their school’s basketball team”. I swear one of these kids was morbidly obese, and was panting from just walking through the train. He hadn’t touched a basketball in years.)
And if I may piggyback on your counter-rant here, the people who give me dirty looks for carrying on a conversation in normal tones with friends in Starbucks can kiss my ass. It’s a coffee shop, not an extension of the university library, dipshits.