Track Maintenance

Lately there has been a big to-do about eating on the NYC subway. Admittedly this may be a to-do manufactured by the media.  The to-do (you knew I would say 'to-do' at least one more time right?) involves video of a woman eating spaghetti with a fork out of a to-go (not 'to-do') container on the subway.  To hear the newscasters tell it, the entire population of all five boroughs is just horrified.  This may surprise you, but I couldn't care less about people eating on the subway. If you would like to eat your lunch while sitting next to a man whom your nose tells you hasn't showered in 6 months, while your eyes peg that shower at more like 8 months ago, that's your choice.  You may need to fight the rats for each delicious bite of fried chicken, but bon appetit. 

I can't focus my annoyance on subway dining because there are so many other subway behaviors more repugnant.  Starting with.... body maintenance.  It never fails - at least once a week I will be traveling on the 2/3 train and will hear the staccato "CLIP CLIP CLIP," the sound of someone clipping their nails.  Even just recounting it I am getting chills.  I just don't get it - did you pack this nail clipper as you got ready for work this morning thinking, "it's about time I take care of these nails, once and for all.  What better time to do it than on the subway!" Let me assure you, though, there are many better times to undertake this maintenance and those are all times that take place in your home.  I would even specify in your bathroom, but seriously, as long as you remove this activity to behind the closed doors of your residence, I'll be happy. Happier, at any rate.

Yes, we are all used to people putting on a fresh coat of lipstick or even a mascara touch up.  I can live with both of those maintenance activities.  I can even accept the person who starts with liquid foundation and works her way through an entire makeup bag, mostly because it is amusing to see the face she (and this is usually a she) makes in her mirror during each step.  The lipstick lip-pucker.  The mascara o-mouth.  The eyeliner side-eye.  What I cannot abide, what even the dude could not abide, is eyebrow plucking.  Under no circumstances may a commuter pull out a tweezer and a hand mirror and go to town yanking out strays.  First of all, have you no shame? Is there no maintenance you believe should be reserved for the privacy of your bath or boudoir? Second of all, when the train or your fellow passenger lurches, and that sharp tweezer lodges itself somewhere in your face, how embarrassed are you going to be when you have to explain the cause of your wound to the emergency room personnel? And I assure you that is multiple personnel.  The nurse at triage, the doctor, and the residents the doctor pulls in, ostensibly to teach them, but really to mock you.

There are many more behaviors that get me going, and I will no doubt address them in more detail at some later date.  Let me just list them here so that if you are engaging in any of them, you cease and desist within the hour: entering before others exist, hugging the pole, sitting on the outside seat, sitting with your legs 2 yards apart, slapping people in the head. That last one especially, please stop immediately.