When I got on the train this morning, I walked past the jerk standing in the doorway and moved to the center of the car like good girls do. I immediately regretted it, because immediately behind me was a woman about my age with an obnoxiously puffy coat and a cellphone loudly playing music. It’s a favorite pastime of New Yorkers to select their new ringtone while on the very public train, so I figured at first that she was scanning through all of her possibilities, but I quickly realized she was just plain listening to a song. One of those annoying hip-hop ballads, at that. And not on a cellphone with good speakers.
At first, I thought, “Who does that?! Signs all around the subway cars clearly state there’s to be no smoking, no littering, and no radio-playing! If we give this one inconsiderate person a pass, anarchy will erupt!”
Then I thought, “Actually, a little music in the subway in the mornings would be nice.”
Then I thought, “No! 90% of this train probably hates this song, too, and if this woman wants to listen to it, she can put on headphones just like everyone else.”
Just then, another woman sitting near her must have asked/told her to turn it off, because she spat back, “I can do what I want.”
3 Comments
q: how do you deal with jerks on the train?
a: take a cab? lol.
You know, this used to be something of an issue for me as well, when I took the train to school every morning. My solution was just to put my headphones on and look as sullen as possible. Monday, I rode the train for the first time in a year, and noticed right off the enormous signs everywhere, in addition to the standard “no eating, no drinking,” etc., public safety-type signs. They said stupid things like “FOUL LANGUAGE IS OFFENSIVE.” Hmmm… not always. And my favorite, “LOUD MUSIC IS LOUD.” Well, no shit. And then at the bottom of each of them, it said, “Respect your ride.” I wondered if they were a band-aid, but found out, immediately upon my train arriving, that the Metro folk mean business. A security guy would not let some nutjob get on the train because he’d been belligerent. Awesome.
Kudos to the woman who asked her to turn it off, but I’ll be honest: I’m usually too much of a chicken to do things like that, even though I really want to.