Taking the Train 101

Fellow train takers, listen up! I'm sick of your nasty eating habits, your inconsiderate bag placement, and the way that that you lean your whole body against the pole so no one else can hang on. Knock it off! I'm starting a city-wide campaign to educate New Yorkers (or actually more accurately non-New Yorkers who are on a family vacations or school trips) about how to be considerate, safe, and generally not big sick-o's when taking the NYC subway.

• When you're taking the train and there aren't any places to sit, you have to hang on. I'm serious about this. You may think that you're superior to the law of physics, but you are not. If you don't hang on to something and instead stand on the train in what I like to call, "ready position," things are not going to end up well for you. You're going to fall or almost fall, and you're going to get hurt or almost hurt. I've seen one too many tourists face plant because they thought they could "surf" the train ride. More than once I've seen someone fall into a stranger's lap. Be a man (or woman!) and hang on.

• If all the subway cars are really full except one, there is a reason why that car is empty. It usually has to do with some sort of bodily fluid and/or a homeless person. It is a sad, tragic reality of the city living? Yes. Does it mean that you should wait for the next train? Absolutely.

• If you lean on or hug a pole on the train, no one else can hang on. It's rude. You need to share that thing!

• Be nice to people with kids/strollers. I know that it's annoying; I get it. But they are living/visiting NYC with kids, and they have therefore been punished enough. Plus that frazzled and exhausted person could just be a poorly paid nanny who wasn't given cab fare and has to cart around someone else's kids all day praying to God that the kids don't get kidnapped or fall into the tracks on their watch. Give them a break.

• Make sure that your headphones are plugged into your iphone all the way.  Your music is fine, but I like mine better. This is something that you don't need to share.

• If you're going to be fondling your lover in the train... well, just don't. One time I had to sit in between two love birds who literally HELD HANDS ACROSS MY BODY. I felt like it was a sick game of Red Rover, and I was losing. I would have offered to switch spots, but I was trapped. Another time a couple was holding each other with a pole in between!! That's breaking TWO of my rules. No wonder people don't want to hang on to those things...

• If you have a bike on the train, there is something wrong. RIDE YOUR BIKE. Some people...

I swear, I'm not usually so finicky about things like this, but the time I spend on the train averages to about 10-12 hours a week. That's a lot of time to put up with pole-hugging and PDA-ing, and I just can't take it anymore! Maybe I need to buy a bike.

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