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Mickey Z
Cool Observer
the Department of Homeland Security.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Seat-seeking missiles (more subway-inspired musings)
Watch out, the battle is on and the big prize, my friends, is a seat on the train. Humans who might normally be meek, subdued, and generally low key transmute into vicious, snarling cretins...all in the name of plopping their sorry ass onto a hard, germ-infested plastic bench.
The W train begins its obstreperous entrance into the 30th Avenue station and these working class zeroes move into position like goddamned ninjas. Please allow me to expound upon the “obstreperous” part of that aforementioned “obstreperous entrance.” The decibel level of your average subway train (if there is such a thang) is not what we humans evolved to withstand. Now multiply this by a thousand times a day (police sirens, jackhammers, jet take-offs, clamorous cell phone users, etc.), every day for the rest of your stentorian life and you do have a problem indeed. Then again, what’s a little biological awareness when there’s money to be made?
Back to the seat-seeking missiles:
Friends become enemies and no one can be trusted when there are seats to be gained. You see, 30th Avenue is only the third stop on the N/W line, so there are almost always some seats available. That means all-out warfare and only the strong survive. Mr. Darwin would be quite alarmed.
Enough with the dime-store metaphors (as if anyone would market metaphors at such cut rates) the big question here is what the hell is wrong with standing? Most of these folks spend their entire day seated behind an un-ergonomic desk...getting no exercise at all. Why rush for that plastic subway seat? It’s not as if they’re comfortable. It’s not as if anyone could actually like sitting shoulder-to-shoulder to a frustrated and acrimonious stranger. It’s not as if the ride is so long. Yet, the pursuit of a subway seat resembles a holy war each and every single morning.
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