Rail Rage on Metro-North: Commuting from Scarsdale to NYC

In a prison population, no one expects you to be polite. Sound like your commute? Some of you, if we accidentally touch each other, will give me a penetrating look as though you are dogs growling at me. Warning: You will bite me if I come near you again. I have learned to live with it, but I’m sick of it. Like a prison community, we have our own social rules of accepted and unaccepted behaviors. Let me vent about a few pertaining to boarding and ticket collections.

There is a very fine line we walk between what’s acceptable and when we want to kill each other. Regular commuters are familiar with the rules, but I’m fed up.

Please stop crowding me and pushing into my personal space as I wait for the train doors to open. During rush, there is this very fine line between actual pushing and pretending you are just waiting for your turn to move. Do me a favor; stop pretending you are not using your bag as a prod to push your way ahead of me, or to keep me from walking ahead of you. I’m not as much of an idiot as you think. I can appreciate that you want your pick of seats. Go ahead, ignore me, but don’t treat me as if I’m not there (Note to readers: Watch for future Curmudgeon blogs on seat selection and bad bag behaviors.) 

While I’m at it, please stop waiting for me to ask you to move your bags, or to take your feet of the seat, so I can sit down. Some of you prey on the meek who would be too afraid to ask you to move. I mean, seriously? These trains rarely have empty seats, and you don’t know not to put a bag down until people are seated. Seriously? You put your dirty feet on the seats expecting that no one is going to sit there. Seriously? You are like dogs peeing on your territory. Just so you know, I’m not just the Curmudgeon Commuter, I am the commuter vigilante. I will find you. I will sit next to you. Just to call you out and annoy you as you just have me. You may ignore me, but you many not behave as if I am not there.

The reactions I get for asking you to move your crap, or your feet off the seats, are equally offensive. Like when you smile, but don’t speak, as if to say, "Sorry I put my bags there, and I am excused from speaking to you." Gee, thanks!

This is my personal favorite reaction. You look forward, purposefully avoiding my eyes, letting me know you think I’m a jerk for talking to you. How dare I tell you what to do! You then pick up your bag and wonder why I couldn’t sit anywhere else. The speed of which you pick your bag up is a pretty good indication of how rude you think I am. Such behaviors are not limited to commuters. Conductors get in on the act.

Ticket checking is a necessary inconvenience in commuting. We know it has to be done, but I'm irritated every time conductors check. I’m irritated before they check, just knowing of the annoyance of it to come. Wherever it is that I have to reach to get my ticket probably means I have to contort myself so as to not touch the guy next to me.

Let’s revisit our prison analogy. The conductor’s hole punch reminds me of a prison guard dragging his beat stick on jail bars, waking the inmates up and indicating it is time for bed checks. I often keep myself from a much needed nap until the clicking comes around. Otherwise, I may be clicked awake into a cardiac arrest.

Conductors know their compulsive clicking gets our trained Pavlovian response of taking out our tickets. I really dislike those things.

I’ll get to the noise irritants in the future—diesels, cell phones, ladies that lunch and conductors' hole punches—but I’ll close this commuter support group on a happier note.

For those of you who remember, there was one conductor we always loved, Mr. Ticketdoos. Remember him, the jolly guy who would comically ask for our tickets by saying "Ticketdoos, ticketdoos," and then he would give us a sucking candy? There is good in all of us. Maybe a little kindness when we are otherwise immersed in the world of our commute is all we need.