Monday, March 17, 2008

More Train Stuff - but also a life message

It has been a while... I've been busy just like everyone else but I guess that's no excuse.
On the train this evening (originally written in mid-March) some schmuck sits down across from me and takes up both seats - he's not fat - he's just stretching out and flopping the tail of his coat purposefully across the other seat. As more people board the train he makes small jestures to move his coat and scoot over as people approach the seat. Several minutes and people pass him and that seat and proceed further into the train.
I'm watching this with some amusement. Sometimes I like to keep time on how long it takes from the time a schmuck sits down to when someone finally asks them to move off the other seat so they can sit.
It typically is about 5 minutes but this can be impacted by how early the schmuck gets on the train. I've seen it go to 15 minutes before - BUT every time someone has eventually taken that other seat. It is pretty funny. The other thing is that I will purposly take that seat even if there are other unimpeaded seats in the general area because it pisses me off that these guys think they can just spread out and take up more space than they need, deserve, or have paid for.
I've gotten some quizzical looks - no one has ever gotten mad - but they sort of look at me funny... Anyways - back to the current schmuck.... Someone finally sits next to the guy and the train starts moving.
So this guy is sitting here in a seat with his back to the end of the car and the train wall to his right side. A southbound train passes us at high speed and WOOSH - this side panel in the wall comes unlocked and totally swings for this guys head. The girl sitting next to me was able to grab it at the last minute so it didn't actually hit him. Then they together spent the next 5 minutes trying to figure out how to lock the thing back up. Pretty funny.
The moral of the story is "don't be that guy."

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