Fidget Fest

And March’s Most Annoying Metro North Commuter Award goes to…

Um, what? Not another annoying commuter post, you say? Oh yes, folks. You got a happy, feel good blog last week—filling my monthly quota. Saaarry. It’s angry blogger time (moohahahaha *holds pinky to mouth a la Dr. Evil*).

Now where was I? Oh yeah. Annoying commuter. So I’m sitting on the train minding my own business and trying to edit a dreadfully boring paper on business models, when “Fidget Woman” scrambles onto the train with an air of flustered self importance and dives into the seat next to me. She was all a flutter, trying to get herself “settled,” manically arranging and rearranging her several bags and zipping and unzipping her purse while simultaneously slurping the dregs of ice coffee from her plastic Starbucks cup, as if she was so busy and important that she had to multitask to sit down (even though she had an hour-long train trip ahead of her).

After finally achieving the appropriate balance for her pile o’ bags, she unzipped her purse and took out her cell phone. Aghast, I realized she had the key pad tones activated, and began to obsessively dial every contact in her phone while projecting a loud string of R2D2 beeps and chirps. After each call and subsequent irritating voicemail, she put her phone in her purse, zipped it, and took out a book, only to read maybe three lines and start the whole bewildering sequence again.

At one point, someone finally answered. The call went like this:

“Hi sweetheart? How are you my love?” (pause…)
“Wait…what? No…No…NO! Absolutely not. Why? Why do we have to? I just…NO. I can’t. I just can’t. I said No. Why can’t we do this tomorrow?” (pause…)
“Oh thank you. Thank you darling. Thank you so much for doing that.”

After this, she snapped her phone shut and returned to her book, where she must have ingested all of three words before unzipping her purse and grabbing her phone again.

“Really?” I finally said, turning to her. “You need the key pad tones blasting with each tap of your finger? You can’t just read your book? Why are you so fidgety? Read. Your. Book.”

OK, No, I didn’t say that. I just shook my head and tried to ignore her. And to put the literal icing on the cake, she then began to scratch her head profusely, a shower of powdered sugar scattering towards me and settling on my shoulders like freshly fallen snow.

Anyway there is a larger point to this rant. As in, why are people so fidgety? Are we so overstimulated by mixed and multimedia, the flickering lights of phones, computers and television sizzling our nerves, so that we can’t stand even one second of quiet solitude? A book doesn’t blink and beep enough so we get bored reading it? Man, I even know people who bring their phone into the bathroom to text (NOT me *cough*). Do all of these children really have ADD or is it just that they can’t sit still and focus unless being bombarded by the bright lights and loud noises of Call of Duty? In my opinion we all have freakin ADD! We can’t even sit on a train and read three lines from a book.

I suppose I should just carry a video ipod with me on the train. I could have put it on in front of Fidget Woman, and she, like a psychotic just given a shot of Haldol, would have settled into a quiet and zombie like state of submission.