Why would we assume that?
When he actually says he would like to give the death penalty to anyone who opened their stupid mouth around him. The extra penalties are for those talking loudly.
ahem
Earplugs
that is all.
ahem
Earplugs!
that is all.
I don’t want to speak for him, but I’m gonna give him the benefit of the doubt and say that may have been meant tongue-in-cheek.
Oh, no! It’s --SARCASM!!! Ooooh, that’s so scary!!! LET’S RUN!
5YL: Excellent reading of tone.
Biggirl: literal interpretation of figurative language, five yard penalty. Repeat the down.
All’s I’m trying to say here is that you need to try to keep your private conversations somewhat private, even if they’re held in public. Talking loud enough to be barely audible to your intended listener is fine; talking so loud you can be heard by your intended listener as well everyone else in the subway car and possibly by those in outlying suburbs of Cleveland, is kinda rude, doubly so when you’re not very entertaining, witty or perceptive, and triply so when you’re offensive, boorish, boring, repetitious, obnoxious, provincial, ethnocentric or droning.
What part of that do we still have a problem with?
Damn it, I came too late to the thread!
To elucidate on Neuroman’s excellent suggestion…
Nothing quite says STFU as eloquently as pulling a set of earplugs out and inserting them. Even if they don’t take the hint, it turns the volume way down.
Also, it’s not a bad idea in general, considering the noise level on most trains. I saw a strewardess, obviously dead-heading to Ft. Lauderdale, put in a pair of foam earplugs at the beginning of the flight and then read her book in complete peace. I tried it on my return flight and now won’t fly without.
I just tell 'em I don’t speak English. I speak several foreign languages well enough to convince monolingual Anglos that I’m a furriner. “Não falo inglês” or “对不起，我不能说英文。” repeated a couple of times is enough to make 'em give up.
Ah, a fellow Vonnegut fan, I take it. 
Stranger
I wish I could take something other than public transportation. Trust me, if I had the money, I would!
I ride a bus to school for a painful hour and a half. It is especially painful to me because the school is only 7 minutes away by car and the bus system here is almost non-existent in addition to being run by idiots. In order to use the time constructively, I like to read the required reading from the texts on the way into school and then do the problems at the end of the sections on the way back.
There is this really annoying born again Christian on the bus who talks in the loudest possible voice about the most annoying stuff. He knows nothing and is very confrontational about his way of talking.
Something that made me feel bad though…
There is a mentally handicapped boy that rides the bus and normally he talks to Loud Mouth. Last time I rode, he came back and sat down next to me and nearly put his arm around me. It made me feel very uncomfortable since he is bigger than me and I hate being touched by strangers. In addition, he had very bad breath. I wanted to scoot away but since he was mentally challenged, I assumed that he couldn’t tell he was making me very uncomfortable. I am just going to avoid having an open seat next to me in the future.
In with water, out with piss. 
I find witnessing and other lunacy mildly entertaining. What utterly makes me froth is when a couple of slicked up business pigs yammer on and on about business. Fuck you! I try not to think about work as much as possible when I’m not at work, because I hate work or effort of any kind (except for sex). It drives me up the wall to hear some wannabes running their mouth about work.
Yah, sometimes you’ll see suits trying to run a business meeting on the subway. I feel like asking them, “Guys, if you think this is appropriate here, can I come up to your boardroom sometime and read my book and eat my apple and all the stuff I’m doing now? No? Then could you STFU?”