Damn vB code…
jr8 - your wife’s a trip! I love her, too.
Eve - I thought about whether the girl was faking it. She was crying really hard and was very embarassed so I doubted it. If she wasn’t acting, then I’m sure she was scared from public transportation forever anyway!
In my college days I took the subway in Toronto. Late one night I was riding home from school in a car empty but for me and three clearly intoxicated young lads. I stood near the door, as was my habit, and as they tumbled out at their stop, one of them projectile-vomited all over my very unfashionable light grey overcoat. Spaghetti with marinara.
Needless to say, I was too stunned (and timid, to be honest) to react. In an instant the doors closed and they were gone. It was a long ride home.
Incidents like these remind me of a line Molly Ringwald said in Sixteen Candles: “I loathe the bus.”
These must be the same people who will not, under any circumstances, move to the back of the bus - not even when the driver yells at them. I can’t count how many times I’ve taken a bus that had 50 people jammed up at the front, and lots of space in the aisle behind them. Maybe these cattle people only feel comfortable in herds.
I’m someone who puts a coat on the seat next to me.
Sorry if I don’t like having weird guys squeeezing up next to me and “accidentally” putting their hand on my leg when I’m wearing a miniskirt.
Oh, and you know what works really well? Spill a little coffee on the seat next to you.
Autumn, if you don’t like to deal with the public you should avoid public transportation.
Elin, I was right with you until you said this. First of all, a child shouldn’t be labeled a “brat” because his mother is lacking in common sense and social skills. And secondly, why should HE suffer for the sins of his mother?
Let the dog aim for the MOTHER, not the child.
I really doubt that anybody likes having strange men squeezing their legs on public transport - the difference is that most considerate people deal with that problem when and if it arises (see jr8’s very cool stories about his wife), rather than inconveniencing everybody else.
Most considerate people wouldn’t vandalise public property in order to prevent people sitting down next to them. They bought a ticket and have just as much right as you to sit down.
I take the bus all the time and have a few stories:
I got on a bus with every seat taken. The front seat has a woman with two little children beside her, and the seat behind her has the stroller, blankets, etc. I push the stuff to one seat and sit down. The mother starts screaming “Don’t you touch my stuff. I have a right to put my stuff there.” I said “I paid for one seat and took one seat. Did you pay for four seats.” The bus driver told her to be quiet.
I’m standing on a very crowded bus when someone grabs my ass. I looked at him and screamed “Get your fucking hand off my ass.” He turned beet-red and dropped his hand. The bus driver stopped and had him leave the bus. Everyone cheered!
My sister and I were boarding a shuttle bus from a concert hall to a parking lot. People were shoving to get onto the bus. She has a trick knee that she can make go out, so she does. She starts screaming and crying "My knee. Someone hurt me. I can’t walk. The bus driver gets out and pushes all the people back, letting us on the bus. The other people line up and get on the bus very orderly. My sister is still crying and I’m doing a running tirade about “Peole who can’t even get on a bus like human beings. There’s plenty of time to get there, but they got to act like lemmings.” After we got to the car, we laughed for 15 minutes.
I wouldn’t mind if an attractive woman sat next to me and squeezed my leg, but for some reason that’s never happened. 
That reminds me of an incident at school once. I was on my way to class, hallways crowded. I mean blocked solid. A couple girls are talking by the locker of one of them. They’re standing so that I can’t get past them without fighting my way upstream…
To give you the basic idea of the set up:
-1- = Girl 1
-2- = Girl 2
<crowd> Lockers
<crowd>-1- Lockers
<crowd> -2-Lockers
<crowd> Me Lockers
<crowd> Lockers
So, anyway, of course, I stupidly decide that getting one of these girls to take a step to the side so I could squeeze past would be easier than trying to get through this crowd.
First, I use my normal mumbled '‘Scuse me…’
No response. Fine, that’s usually enough, but I was pretty quiet, she I can understand not being heard.
Then, in my normal conversational tone. ‘Excuse me…’
No response. Ok, it’s loud, and still, I was a little quiet, no problem.
Then, in a normal person’s conversational tone. ‘Excuse me.’
No response. Ok, this is getting stupid. Only way I could be closer would be grounds for sexual harrassment, and I was plenty loud enough to be heard even over the rabble. (To my ears, I was almost shouting, and I’ve had normal conversations in this setting.)
Then finally a (very) slightly raised voice. ‘Excuse. Me.’
FINALLY, this gets Girl 2’s attention, and she moves aside so I can squeeze by. Of course, most people in this situation would simply assume they’d not heard me before and apologise, or else move aside without otherwise acknowledging me. Not this girl. Oh no… She shoots me this look, like I’d just called her the slutty spawn of Satan.
::Sigh:: Some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed…
Erm, that should be ‘…so I can understand…’.
And I just realised, I have no real reason to assume the Chatty Cathies were actually at one of their lockers…
Eve, I had a similar situation at a bar. The place was packed and this missing link, thought it would be ‘cute’ to try and keep me from getting around him. He had his back to me and if I tried going around on the left, he moved to his left…etc
After about a minute of this, I stood on my toes and sweetly whispered in his ear, “don’t make me kill you!”
My sisters are good at this too. My older sister is an attorney and one day she was standing on the El platform with her briefcase and purse so far over her shoulder they were almost on her back. Now at a willowy 5’2", I’m
the tallest one in the family. So my tiny little sister feels something going on and turns around to see some crackhead (or whatever his drug of choice may have been) running down the stair with her wallet. What do she do?
Why she screams “HEY, ASSHOLE! GIMME BACK MY WALLET” and gives chase. She catchs him and gets her wallet back, but also, makes him empty all his pockets to make sure she has all her stuff. Later she said she was having a Cagney and Lacey moment.
Sister #2 is a body builder and when she accidently dropped a weight while she was working out, she said the appropriate thing. FUCK! Some huge Steroid troll came over and proceeded to give her the whole, “I don’t want to her women swear” lecture. Janet, who had to crane her neck all the way back to look up at him, said “fuck you!” and walked off.
My pet peeves: people who climb into NY subways and stop moving as soon as THEIR ass is inside during rush hour; and hostile people (usually males of a certain age) who sprawl with their legs at a 45° angle and slouch as if they are taking a dump.
In particular, many of the subway cars were designed with poles close to the doors. You have to move beyond the area of the poles (and whatever people are holding onto it) to get to the center of the cars. Once a critical mass of commuters has entered and glommed onto the pole, no one else can get past them and into the center-car area without their cooperation (i.e., letting go and going into the center-car area themselves; squeezing in closer to the other pole-hangers; or letting go and doing a do-si-do with you as you slide past them).
So the crowded car pulls into the station during rush hour and the doors open. Other people get on in front of me and, blocked by the Pole Hogs, quickly stop moving.
I step in, express a couple of “pardon me’s”, and then head straight for the center-car area, stepping past, over the knees and ankles of, under, or through the armpits of those occupying the foyer, and crunch through the Pole Hogs, leaving bruised and dislocated elbows arrayed behind me. There’s enough room here for six more people, who follow me from the platform into the car that they would not otherwise be occupying.
When boarding during non-rush hour, if there’s an empty seat I’m taking it unless it is partially occupied by a massive person. Slouchy grouchy guys, unlike the plump and ponderous, aren’t covered by that exclusionary clause. I point at the empty seat, nod and smile, pivot and seat myself, realigning the dude’s posture with my leg and butt as I land. If necessary, I hoist my intimidating Targus computer bag onto my lap, turning it sideways, and wrap my arms around it. (they often curse and move to another car. sometimes I get cheers).
Sua?? I think I love you 
Eve? Fuck them all, one at a time, the soulless mindless narcissistic dronemonkey shitheads. So, am I the only one in NYC who was raised with some manners??? ( Of course, I WAS raised in Philly, but still.
Not only have I stood up on a NYC subway to give my seat to an elderly person, but I’ve gotten hate stares GALORE when it’s been an elderly person of color. I mean, whatthefuck?? You try walking up and down those fucking subway entrance stairs in the bitter cold winter at the age of 60-whatever. SHOW SOME RESPECT !!!
It’s atrocious. It’s such a simple act of kindness to stand up and let someone who could really use the rest a chance to sit down. Why is it that I see people of all ages and races, refusing. They’d rather sit, and look at some tired older person, struggling to stand as the train car rocks and sways? Selfish fucks.
Eve, as for your O.P.? There is nothing that is of value that compares to another human being. Those fuckwits don’t deserve to ride next to you. Their laptops computers, $ 350.00 London Fog coats and illegal Elephant Leather briefcases can kiss my pudgy yet relatively unoffensive ass. They should scoot over. They didn’t but a fucking first class airfare ticket, it’s the TRAIN for god’s sake. Instead, they make you step over? Hope you spiked her instep but good on the way as well.
I’ll tell you something, I try to be a good daddy. Some days I cut it, some days I don’t. My kids, if NOTHING ELSE, will learn common decency and manners. Respect for adults, especially older adults. It is the backbone of reasonable society, to show respect and kindnesses. Obviously these people you’re riding the train with weren’t raised by humans.
<snarl>
Cartooniverse
It can even get more special when you have manners…
I was on a bus a few years ago in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I had the flu, so I left work early and picked up some groceries so I could take care of myself.
The bus was nearly empty when I got on, and filled up a few blocks before my stop. I had five bags of groceries. Two in my lap, one on the floor, and two next to me. It turns out to be the last seat. A large black man comes up and says “Move your fuckin’ bags.”
I try to explain that there is no where to put them, and he again says “Move your fuckin’ bags.”
So, I qam now balancing two bags in the air, he takes the seat, and begins muttering about the cracker who won’t give the seat to a black man. I turn to him and start saying: “You’ve got the fucking seat, now let it drop.” Before I can finish, he punches me in the face. I look at him calmly and say “Are you done?” He punches me in the face again.
I call up to the driver that an assault is in progress on the bus, and would he be kind enough to call the police.
The assaulter gets up, makes a motion to get the gun he has in his waistband, and then gets off, glaring at me the entire time. Another black man zooms into the seat and glares at me until my stop, two blocks later.
Damn good thing I had already taken some NyQuil, or I might have felt the blows.
“Instead, they make you step over? Hope you spiked her instep but good on the way as well.”
—'Course I did, dear; you knowm me that well by now!
Cartoon—I’m a New Yorker by way of Philly, too. We have that nice combination of well-bred Philadelphia manners and “get the fuck out of my WAY” New Yorkiness.
People. Yet one more argument in favor of private transportation.
Uncle, don’t get us started on rude drivers…!
Eve, thanks for bringing up one of my pet peeves.
Here’s another one – I’m sitting in the window seat of a double, forward facing seat. I need to get out because my stop is coming up. The person in the aisle seat can’t be bothered to get up to let me out, but instead makes a lame attempt to move his knees to the side by an inch or 2.
This happens to me all the time. In the past, I would deal with it by exiting as non-offensively as I could. Now, I try to make sure the person gets a toe full of heel and a face full of butt.
I love you, AHunter3.
Seriously, you posted pretty much what I’ve been thinking as I read this thread. My workday commute (I’m in NYC too) is relatively short, so I don’t usually mind standing. Some days, however, it’s a different story. And I hate hate hate the 45 degree angle sitters. Do you need to sit with your knees three feet apart, dickhead? No, I don’t think you do. Shove the fuck over.
Like you, I don’t try to shove in when the person sitting there is simply big, be they exceptionally tall or heavy or whatever. In fact I sympathize with them because subway seats assume a “one size fits all” standard that doesn’t really work. What I can’t stand are the average-sized people who will sit between two seats as if they’re too special to rub shoulders with us commoners.
Also on the List are people who sit next to me and try to squeeze me out of my seat-- I’m talking about the ones to whom a nice full seat is available, but they feel the need to spread out and crush me into my neighbor on the other side. Subtley pushing back helps.
And, in closing, a special “Up Yours” to the woman who almost mowed me down today as she dove for the seat she thought I was headed for. I was carrying a heavy bag, but I would have let her have it anyway (she was carrying luggage) but she just about knocked me over. Bitch.