I shouldn't wear high heels.
I hate to admit it, but there are times when even I can't handle the subway.
Yesterday I could have stared holes into the heads of the people sitting in front of me after I'd staggered onto the last car of a rush hour F train, looked around desperately for a little space to wiggle a seat for my tired feet, and finally had to settle for a standing position in front of 3 people spread out in a space for 4.
So I was wearing high heels. Yes, that's my fault. I'd had an informational interview that afternoon and was nervous getting dressed in the morning and I threw on black pumps, stupidly forgetting to bring backup shoes (which I usually don't even wear because I have too much fashion dignity to be caught in an after-work flip-flop situation by artsy, stylish types who share my commute home). But for godsakes, people! Have a little charity! Make room for a limping Chinese woman.
I stared and stared at the three offenders, but one old dude was editing a will, another middle-aged balding guy (with a surprising amount of hair where he *wasn't* balding) was reading the arts section of the New York Times [and taking up plenty of elbow room with his unrefined page-turning antics] and the woman sitting between them kept holding out her nails to see if they'd changed in the minute or two since she last looked at them. Needless to say, they didn't notice me.
I suppose I could have asked them to move over. But I'm from New York. I don't confront. I only stew.
At home later that evening, our dinner guest, Annie, told a story, unprovoked, about obnoxious people on the subway, loudly and purposefully imitating each other 's British and American accents, betraying their good looks with pure inaneness. It got me thinking about other things that people do on the subway that I find upsetting. They include:
* clipping nails
* eating smelly fast food (e.g. McDonald's or chinese takeout)
* flashing (this happened to me when I was in middle school)
* playing music so loudly out of headphones that everyone in a 5-foot radius can also hear your bad 80s music or your hardcore rap
Things that make me smile on the subway:
* anyone who gets up for someone with a pregnant belly or pushing a stroller
* kids on their way to school, with heads that fall to their chins and jerk back violently in an attempt not to fall asleep
* those kids' peers who remove their backpack from their backs and place them on the floor in a considerate gesture that makes room for us fat adults
* kids who sell candy and say, "I'm not trying to raise money for my basketball team, or feed the homeless, I'm just tryin' to keep it real."
Yesterday I could have stared holes into the heads of the people sitting in front of me after I'd staggered onto the last car of a rush hour F train, looked around desperately for a little space to wiggle a seat for my tired feet, and finally had to settle for a standing position in front of 3 people spread out in a space for 4.So I was wearing high heels. Yes, that's my fault. I'd had an informational interview that afternoon and was nervous getting dressed in the morning and I threw on black pumps, stupidly forgetting to bring backup shoes (which I usually don't even wear because I have too much fashion dignity to be caught in an after-work flip-flop situation by artsy, stylish types who share my commute home). But for godsakes, people! Have a little charity! Make room for a limping Chinese woman.
I stared and stared at the three offenders, but one old dude was editing a will, another middle-aged balding guy (with a surprising amount of hair where he *wasn't* balding) was reading the arts section of the New York Times [and taking up plenty of elbow room with his unrefined page-turning antics] and the woman sitting between them kept holding out her nails to see if they'd changed in the minute or two since she last looked at them. Needless to say, they didn't notice me.
I suppose I could have asked them to move over. But I'm from New York. I don't confront. I only stew.
At home later that evening, our dinner guest, Annie, told a story, unprovoked, about obnoxious people on the subway, loudly and purposefully imitating each other 's British and American accents, betraying their good looks with pure inaneness. It got me thinking about other things that people do on the subway that I find upsetting. They include:
* clipping nails
* eating smelly fast food (e.g. McDonald's or chinese takeout)
* flashing (this happened to me when I was in middle school)
* playing music so loudly out of headphones that everyone in a 5-foot radius can also hear your bad 80s music or your hardcore rap
Things that make me smile on the subway:
* anyone who gets up for someone with a pregnant belly or pushing a stroller
* kids on their way to school, with heads that fall to their chins and jerk back violently in an attempt not to fall asleep
* those kids' peers who remove their backpack from their backs and place them on the floor in a considerate gesture that makes room for us fat adults
* kids who sell candy and say, "I'm not trying to raise money for my basketball team, or feed the homeless, I'm just tryin' to keep it real."
posted by brad board babe at 4:26 PM
5 Comments:
so true about being from new york and stewing - we are fabulous stewers, we should get paid to stew.
and your list of things that make you smile on the subway are great - made me smile just reading them.
~lisa
Thing that makes me happy on the subway: The guy who does a space-is-the-place rap and plays some funky Sun Ra-style saxophone.
I am going to do some parasite blogging now, and for this I apologize. But I just have to share this Swedish subway moment.
I don't know what the deal is in the US, but Swedish bachelorette (and bachelor) parties always involve the friends of the bride/groom planning something semi-embarrassing but hopefully kinda fun task for the bride/groom to carry out.
Now, I was on the subway in Stockholm a sunny afternoon in early June. The car was pretty packed. On the central station, a bachelorette party gets on the train. The friends of the bride seem to have planned some sort of sing-a-long activity, where the bride has to get everyone to sing along to a really classic folk song in Swedish. The song is about someone dreaming about peace on earth and that everyone live happily in harmony (it's one of those songs that you could, if you wanted to, hook arms with the person next to you and sway).
Anyway, I started to feel sorry for the poor bride - certainly, I thought, she is not going to make friends with anyone in this wagon by trying to make them sing songs about peace. Her friends went around passing out papers with the lyrics printed, and then they started to sing. This is where it got interesting.
EVERYONE in the whole train started to sing along. A little hesitant at first, but then as if they truly believed every word. Groups of 14-year old girls, moms with babies, men with suits and briefcases... at one point in the song where the lyrics say something about standing up for peace, one elderly lady stood up, raised her hand and made a fist.
The singing kept on going as the train made its way to the next stop. But just because the train was stopping didn't mean that people stopped singing. The crowd was getting really into it, and when the train stopped at the platform we were right in the middle of a verse (yes, I say "we"...).
The look on the faces of the people who, on an average Thursday afternoon in early June, stepped into a crowded subway train where EVERYONE was singing in unison about peace on earth, made me smile. In fact, the thought of that will make me smile for ever, whenever I ride the subway, or any other public transportation. Or when I just sit at home.
josefine,
that is amazing. i'm sure everyone who's read this wishes they could've been there, because i sure do.
~lisa
I'm glad you enjoyed it. The least I can do is spread the delight. For more local color: I realized that the song was not Swedish at all; in fact I think it's kinda global. It was "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream", for those of you who know it (the lyrics were in Swedish, though).
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