Entry #2 – NYC Makes You Curse in Public – Maybe Too Much

No, but really.

Once you’ve been here a couple weeks, enough aggressive action has transpired that you start thinking, “Okay, the NEXT time someone comes at me on the subway, I am getting all up in their business.”

You would be wrong.

As everyone is scrambling to force their way onto the number six so that they can finally go home at the end of the day, no one is thinking about who was standing in front of them, or that they just got there and probably ten other people were already waiting.  That’s not how it works.  There are no lines.  There are no rules.  There is no courtesy.  There is only the train, and the daily tested question of how many people can fit until the doors can’t close.

These are easy observations, common, unsurprising.  You see it happen every day and depending on your mood, you’re one of the jerks who slides through the turnstiles and elbows your way on ahead of everyone else.

But you never, ever push someone off.

All the pushing and shoving should be focused forward, onto the train.  Everyone gets shoulder to shoulder and starts buddying their way in – I say this because you have to remember everyone is in the same boat (or train) and to endear them to you because the silent resentment thing isn’t worth it.

But last week, after I had slid my way onto the train, just within the confines of the doors, a woman slid her arm between me and my new buddies and pushed me off.  Arm.  Torso.  Backwards shove.  Like a slap a across my collarbones.

I stumbled back onto the platform and stared in disbelief.  I like to think my buddies were staring, too.  Because it’s just not done.  YOU DO NOT SHOVE PEOPLE OFF OF TRAINS.

And that’s what I said to her.  Well, with a few colorful embellishments.  She had her back turned to me, the doors struggling to slide shut over her ridiculous, sorry – I’m sorry.  I shouted a few things at her, but I didn’t bring anything personal into it.  I don’t believe in saying things like that out loud.

But you can bet I was saying them in my head.

I furiously stormed over to the wall to have a good pout.

The next train came in two minutes.  There was even a vacant seat for me, so I could settle in and read my book.

Everyone around here tends to walk with a certain attitude like, “What?  You looking at me?  WHAT?”  But people usually aren’t really like that.  It’s a front.  Everyone here is really quite congenial.  I just happened to meet a woman who probably isn’t even from this city who was just actually, truly rude.

And it made me a bit rude back.

But still, I’m happy I said something.  Even if it was incoherent and PG-13.