An Open Letter to my Metro Car Muses
Jan. 21st, 2005 04:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfieldDear Orange Line Metro riders of the afternoon of Thursday, January 20:
I hate you all.
Especially you tourists -- and don't think I don't know who you are. I see you in your cowboy hats and your American flag vests, with your fanny packs that only serve to accentuate the size of your already enormous fannies. Between your bodily girth and your wide brims (which I can only assume are helpful in preventing you from walking into walls) and your bags of Hooray America! paraphenalia, you are taking up enough space and oxygen for at least three normal-sized people. Please, at your earliest convenience, go back to wherever you came from. And do me a favor: take a bus, because modern commercial aircraft is no longer equipped to transport people of your unweildy carriage without seriously inconveniencing the poor bastard next to you.
And if you're going to cram yourselves on to the car with little regard for the critical mass of people inside, at least be kind enough to keep quiet, instead of compulsively talking to your friend or your wife about your nagging foot fungus, especially if your breath smells like Italian sausage and fried cabbage.
There is no reason why the Orange line should be so crowded at 1:30 in the afternoon. I realize that it is Inauguration Day and most of downtown DC has the day off, but most Virginia office buildings are still going about their normal business, and it's not like there are a whole bunch of hotels west of Rosslyn. What the hell are you people doing, riding all the way to Vienna? Are you looking for a waffle house, or do you just think the Metro is some kind of Disneyland ride?
At least if it was a Disneyland ride, your children would be strapped in, instead of squirming all over the seat and floor and then running their grubby germ-infested hands all over the poles. And even if you're apathetic to the plight of bystanders like me, please don't let your children put their mouths on the pole.
Because there's that guy -- that guy on every train, and it's always a guy -- who, instead of standing up and using the supports to brace himself like a normal person, decides to lean his entire body against the whole pole. Yeah, buddy, I'm talking to you. Not only are you monopolizing the pole so that no one can use it without touching your sweaty, slovenly body, but you happen to be cradling the bottom portion of the pole in your ass crack, like you are Demi Moore in Striptease. One more grinding motion with the up-and-down bobbing of the train car and I think I'm going to be sick.
Finally, after the second-to-last stop, there was enough room to move about in the car. There were even plenty of open seats. But I counted at least four of you fuckers alone in the aisle seat of an otherwise vacant seating booth. Especially you, crusty old man reading the Washington Times and pretending you don't see the woman standing next to you and hinting that she'd like to sit.
Look, I realize that every person needs a certain amount of personal space, and this is your passive-agressive pansy-ass way of saying "go away, strangers." But you have to realize that we need to work as a team here. You do not have the right to appropriate extra seats while there are still people standing, unless of course you are one of these fat bastards whose ass is so big that any extra weight on the seat would cause the train car to derail.
And more than that, when a person finally does get your intention and requests asylum in your seating booth, you have the audacity to squeak out a huff, turn up your nose in quiet disgust, and scrunch your knees in slightly so that the seat-seeking individual has to suffer the humiliating procedure of climbing over your feeble frame.
I know what you're thinking, you selfish little shit. "But I want to be able to get out first." But it is inherent in the social contract: The person who occupies an aisle seat knows that they may be called upon to move in the event of the seatmate's evacuation, and anyone who does not allow free passage from the inside seat is eligible for a sound beating, to be assisted by willing onlookers. The moral of the story: move your ass.
And then, when we finally get off the train and it's time to take the escalator up to the platform, the tourists decide to take another ride, standing there on the escalator like they're car parts on a conveyor belt. Dumb, fat, stupid car parts. If you can't summon the energy to walk up -- or, so help me, down -- a flight of 25 steps, at least have the decency to move to the right and let people like me, who have actual things to do, get by on the left.
Listen, I know society is a tough game to play sometimes. And I know Metro isn't perfect. But it would be a whole lot better if you anti-social, carbo-loaded bacteria farms learned how to use our system before clogging it with your teeming humanity. Try hitchhiking instead. I know, people who pick up hitchhikers are scary and dangerous. But guess what, motherfuckers?
So am I.
Yours sincerely,
I hate you all.
Especially you tourists -- and don't think I don't know who you are. I see you in your cowboy hats and your American flag vests, with your fanny packs that only serve to accentuate the size of your already enormous fannies. Between your bodily girth and your wide brims (which I can only assume are helpful in preventing you from walking into walls) and your bags of Hooray America! paraphenalia, you are taking up enough space and oxygen for at least three normal-sized people. Please, at your earliest convenience, go back to wherever you came from. And do me a favor: take a bus, because modern commercial aircraft is no longer equipped to transport people of your unweildy carriage without seriously inconveniencing the poor bastard next to you.
And if you're going to cram yourselves on to the car with little regard for the critical mass of people inside, at least be kind enough to keep quiet, instead of compulsively talking to your friend or your wife about your nagging foot fungus, especially if your breath smells like Italian sausage and fried cabbage.
There is no reason why the Orange line should be so crowded at 1:30 in the afternoon. I realize that it is Inauguration Day and most of downtown DC has the day off, but most Virginia office buildings are still going about their normal business, and it's not like there are a whole bunch of hotels west of Rosslyn. What the hell are you people doing, riding all the way to Vienna? Are you looking for a waffle house, or do you just think the Metro is some kind of Disneyland ride?
At least if it was a Disneyland ride, your children would be strapped in, instead of squirming all over the seat and floor and then running their grubby germ-infested hands all over the poles. And even if you're apathetic to the plight of bystanders like me, please don't let your children put their mouths on the pole.
Because there's that guy -- that guy on every train, and it's always a guy -- who, instead of standing up and using the supports to brace himself like a normal person, decides to lean his entire body against the whole pole. Yeah, buddy, I'm talking to you. Not only are you monopolizing the pole so that no one can use it without touching your sweaty, slovenly body, but you happen to be cradling the bottom portion of the pole in your ass crack, like you are Demi Moore in Striptease. One more grinding motion with the up-and-down bobbing of the train car and I think I'm going to be sick.
Finally, after the second-to-last stop, there was enough room to move about in the car. There were even plenty of open seats. But I counted at least four of you fuckers alone in the aisle seat of an otherwise vacant seating booth. Especially you, crusty old man reading the Washington Times and pretending you don't see the woman standing next to you and hinting that she'd like to sit.
Look, I realize that every person needs a certain amount of personal space, and this is your passive-agressive pansy-ass way of saying "go away, strangers." But you have to realize that we need to work as a team here. You do not have the right to appropriate extra seats while there are still people standing, unless of course you are one of these fat bastards whose ass is so big that any extra weight on the seat would cause the train car to derail.
And more than that, when a person finally does get your intention and requests asylum in your seating booth, you have the audacity to squeak out a huff, turn up your nose in quiet disgust, and scrunch your knees in slightly so that the seat-seeking individual has to suffer the humiliating procedure of climbing over your feeble frame.
I know what you're thinking, you selfish little shit. "But I want to be able to get out first." But it is inherent in the social contract: The person who occupies an aisle seat knows that they may be called upon to move in the event of the seatmate's evacuation, and anyone who does not allow free passage from the inside seat is eligible for a sound beating, to be assisted by willing onlookers. The moral of the story: move your ass.
And then, when we finally get off the train and it's time to take the escalator up to the platform, the tourists decide to take another ride, standing there on the escalator like they're car parts on a conveyor belt. Dumb, fat, stupid car parts. If you can't summon the energy to walk up -- or, so help me, down -- a flight of 25 steps, at least have the decency to move to the right and let people like me, who have actual things to do, get by on the left.
Listen, I know society is a tough game to play sometimes. And I know Metro isn't perfect. But it would be a whole lot better if you anti-social, carbo-loaded bacteria farms learned how to use our system before clogging it with your teeming humanity. Try hitchhiking instead. I know, people who pick up hitchhikers are scary and dangerous. But guess what, motherfuckers?
So am I.
Yours sincerely,
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Metro Car of Rage
Date: 2005-01-22 01:16 am (UTC)Enchanted_Pants_On_Fire
Date: 2005-01-22 05:52 am (UTC)Ding! Ding! Ding!
Date: 2005-01-24 02:30 pm (UTC)Re: Ding! Ding! Ding!
Date: 2005-01-28 03:04 am (UTC)I'm also gratified that I used the word "motherfucker." It seemed so prosaic, but I think it really worked in context. Actually, I almost went with "douchebag," but I wasn't entirely sure how to spell it.
Warm up a FatMeal, I'm going to Disney World. Yee-hah!