“It’s the same old chubby guy with rust-colored hair in a wheelchair who goes down the stairs backwards holding onto the rail because there’s no elevator in our station as yesterday…”
FWIW, there’s actually a non-testicle related reason why many men feel more comfortable to sit with their knees wide apart. Y’see, if the distance from the floor to your seat is shorter than the length of your lower legs (as it is for most taller men), then (sitting legs-together) your knees will be higher than your waist.
(Picture a really tall guy sitting upright on a tiny stool–his knees will be somewhere in the vicinity of his ears.)
However, sitting knees-higher-than-your-bum puts pressure at the base of your spine, which gets pretty uncomfortable after a while. (This is one thing occupational therapists look at when assessing how you sit on an office chair–your upper legs shouldn’t be higher than your pelvis.) So spreading your legs apart allows you to lower the angle of your thighs (i.e. your legs lie apart but basically flat on the seat) and reduce the pressure on your lower back.
See? Simple reason why (most) guys sit in this position!
OTOH, it’s a pretty rude way to behave, if space is limited. I’m sure many guys sit legs apart at least partially because they’re total pricks. To these men, the best retort is, “Close your legs man, your breath stinks like shit!”
This is legal (the no elevator thing) in NY? 
I’ll second this rant, thank you for putting it together! 
Excellent rant, you have addressed all my ‘joys’ of travelling on the London Underground. I have an added pet hate on top of all the ones previousley brought up. Why oh why do people who where once walking along at a fairly brisk pace suddenley feel compelled to stop when they step onto a moving walkway (like a horizontal escalator)? You seemed to have no problem with walking before and now you have just passed up the oppurtunity to walk twice as fast! Now if you feel that you absolutley have to stop for the 200 yards that the good people at LU have allowed you to stop walking could you please, please get your lazy, fat asses and oversized cases to the goddamn right allowing me to walk past and continue my journey? And while your at it please take your moment of idleness to get your ticket ready because as you can see the barriers are at the end of this marvellous conveyance and you will be required to use it at this point and I don’t want to be trapped behind you while you search for ten fucking minutes in every single pocket but the correct one.
It’s not how fast I can get there, it’s how little energy I have to expend along the way.
I don’t really mind Miller, just as long as you:
What we need here is a whole lot of Undercover Transit Cops, each armed with a miniature cattle prod. Each of them also needs to be constipated, to have the proper attitude. If this squad of cops came into being, I predict that most people would very soon learn to MOVE OUT OF THE WAY.
I don’t take public transit any longer, but I do occasionally go grocery shopping with my husband. I keep trying to teach him to NOT stop in the middle of the aisle, but I do believe it’s gonna take a cattle prod, at least. I apologize to anyone who has had the misfortune to want to get to something that he’s blocked.
Jervoise I’m fairly tall (6’1") and I’m fine sitting on the bench. They really only do it to be assholes.
Oh and the elevator thing.
The NYC subway is about 100 years old. A few stations have been fitted with handicap access but not all. I imagine that they are trying for a large number of the stations to be so. However all the city buses are accessible.
Possibly. I do ride that train occasionally, although not as part of my daily commute, and I don’t see the guy very often, which would fit with that.
One passenger stated out loud that the guy is a hoax. Umm, OK. The guy really has legs and he’s just got them folded up really really really tightly under his butt while he scoots around on that skateboard. Right.
This is a blinding idea! ‘Freeze punk, Transit Cops!’ ‘Up against the wall perp, what have we here? A case of elephantiasis of the testicles? What, no? You just like to sit that way to make the ladies think you are packing?’ BZZZZBBZZZBB! ‘Take that scum bag, we don’t take kindly to gross exageration of testicle size on our patch, now beat it before we REALLY get mediaeval on your ass’.
When I grow up I wanna be a ‘Transit Cop’…
I thought of writing this rant a few months ago, but you summed up about everything I wanted to say. My biggest pet peeves are the bratty junior high schoolkids who never learned the meaning of “inside voice” and cop an attitude when you remind them that others might want to sleep, do their homework, etc., and of course, those cretins who can’t understand “stand right, walk left”. I’ve missed a couple trains because of them (and the trains only come about once every 10 minutes even during rush hour…grr).
I miss NY. I used to experience much of what you speak of everyday. I’d take the E train to 53rd st. and transfer for the 6. And then back the other way. Over there is a sort of curvy hallway you walk in to transfer from one line to the other and a super tall escalator? I’d be late every single day because of people slowly wandering along. I’d get off the escalator and there’d be my train pulling away because the damn people on the escalator would not walk down it, move aside to let others pass, or anything, so I’d have to ride down the impossibly slow escalator knowing there was a train in that station about to leave. I couldn’t have been the only person in a rush.
I’ve seen that legless skateboard man.
Lucky you don’t ride the E train anymore, a guy fell asleep on it the other day and woke up with a steak knife in his chest.
Ouch!
I love the way 3 people can go down a walkway leaving a gap 3/4 of a person wide each side and 3/4 of a person wide between each of them so that 3 people can take up the room of 6.
Stuck behind old people my teenage son suggested a few years ago that shopping centers should employ snipers with rubber bullets to cut down anyone walking too slowly. I couldn’t be horrified I just laughed.
God, yea, I love the people who saunter three or four abreast, meandering, taking their time, blocking the WHOLE FUCKING HALLWAY, chatting happily and leaving no room for anyone to go by without shoving.
Its things like this that make me glad I have a car
So how about those SUV drivers?
SUVs are getting so big these days that pretty soon I will just be able to drive underneath them
Ever been to georgia??? I live in Iowa and people there are SLOWER than hell!!! Enough to piss me off… Just because people cant find this state on a map, doesnt make us slow… Hell if americans cant find it… terrorists sure cant hahahah. though if your looking for it, better ask yourself why anyways
Maybe us compact car drivers could find a way to attach to the big SUVs and migrate with them. Like remoras. They’re always bragging about all that horsepower, right? Put it to good use. I’m picturing Lincoln Navigators tooling down the interstate, with two or three Honda Civics attached.