December Observations

I’ve been sick the past couple of days, so I have nothing much to write about concerning my training, since I took the last three days off. Instead I will recant some trivial observations I’ve made over the past week or so.

I observed that my friend Todd has decided to leave another message on my blog, this time using a misnomer, instead of leaving a message anonymously. Really Todd, for a poet who uses his imagination to weave proses that are thought provoking, you show an incredible lack of talent in your creative processes. I expect more of you and I am left profoundly disappointed.

At work this week, I observed someone brushing their teeth at the sink in the kitchen area of my office. A bathroom was not that far away and I thought his actions showed an incredible lack of class. At least he used a paper cup for water to rinse his mouth instead of his hand.

Climbing the steps out of the subway one day, I had the pleasure of walking behind a woman in a short dress with a though high stocking not quite making up above the end of the dress. Unfortunately, the thigh the stocking was pressing against was quite cherubic and caused a ripple of fat above and below the elastic on the top of the stocking. Not a pretty sight.

I also had the pleasure of darting into a restroom in a local food place on 56th Street. In the bathroom was a sign that stated “Please do not put any paper in the toilet. Not even toilet tissue”. I guess that even shit encrusted toilet paper was not allowed. I supposed they meant for you to take any and all paper with you, because the bathroom didn’t even have a garbage can. I felt like asking them what about if I have to wipe my ass, but I was late for work.

On the train today, I observed someone holding a door from the outside in the hopes of forcing the conductor to open the door so she should get on. The ball of her boot ensconced foot was between the doors and she was making quite the scene about not being able to pull it out. The conductor refused to open the doors so we sat their in a stalemate for quite some time.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves and I started yelling at her from across the car to get her foot out of the door along with several other people. One gentleman even walked over to assist her in pushing her foot back out of the door, but she made a statement that he was hurting her foot, so he just backed away.

Finally, the conductor giggled the door open and closed quickly and this woman proceeded to stick her foot further in. Finally, the conductor had no choice to open the door, whereby she and several other passengers made their way into the car.

I told this woman that she was wrong and obnoxious for what she did. She started to defend herself by saying that she has the right to get on the train, just like everyone else. I pointed out to her that she has the right to miss the train just like everyone else and that holding the doors was wrong and that she could get a summons for doing so and she should now look around at all of the people she was making late.

Now that she was on the train, the doors refused to close. She made a comment about what the rush was since we were now just standing here. I let her know that the reason we were standing here was because we had other trains passing in front of us and that the whole train schedule is now screwed up because of her.

Some people were viewing this conversation with amusement, others with the look of why I was bothering to get into it with her. I didn’t really care and I wanted to make her feel really bad for making 100’s of people late for work. As if I cue, a gentleman further down the car started speaking on his cell phone (we were on the elevated portion of the F line at 4th Avenue/9th Streets) in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear how he was running late due to problems on the train. When I then said to her “You see that? There’s someone letting his boss know he is late for work right now”, all the passengers around this person erupted in laughter. The further laughed when I said I hoped he doesn’t get fired for being late.

It turns out that this woman decided to only ride with us for one stop. As I saw her starting to leave the car, a couple of passengers, with me being the loudest said “That’s it? You only had to go one stop? You could have walked to this station in the time you held the door open.

After she was gone the mood in the car was definitely brightened. It was a classic New York street scene that I think most people on the car appreciated.