Quick Notes on a Nerd in Amish Paradise

Photo by natalie419, via Flickr

In general I try not to listen to people’s conversations on public transportation, at restaurants, or on the street, as about 99.9% of all that I hear annoys me. Speaking a second language doesn’t help, as I can’t block out those annoying conversations that may just sound like a jumble of noises to others. But every once in a while, I hear a real gem that I believe warrants repeating, if only so we can all collectively roll our eyes, readers.

So I’m on the subway this morning going to work. It's already claustrophobically tight in the car, with people smashed against each other and invading personal spaces ad nauseam. In front of me is a balding business man who looks harmless enough—were he not punching a balled-up fist into his other hand and saying, repeatedly “let’s go” to nobody in particular. In back of me is a wolf pack of raging dorks, guffawing unbecomingly.

“So, I used to actually live in Pennsylvania,” says one geek, so loud that the entire subway car flinches. His voice tells me he is a) young, b) a total nerd, and c) not from New York City, as any of these characteristics guarantee that the person in question does not get that nobody wants to hear their MOFO conversation.  

“That’s right, Amish country,” the nerd continues in all his glory, while the Business Freak starts to twitch. “And you know what’s curious about Amish country?”

Geeks 2, 3, 4, and 5: “Herdeeherdeeher what’s that?”

Nerd 1: “Well, I’ll tell you it’s their naming conventions. They may be very serious people, but the names of their towns are . . . let’s just say, VERY risqué."

Geeks 2, 3, 4, and 5, riled up now: “Herdeeherdeeher, like what?”

Nerd 1: “For example," (allowing long pause for dramatic effect) "There’s INTERCOURSE, Pennsylvania.”

Geeks 2, 3, 4, and 5: *explosive laughter.*

Nerd 1: "And there’s BIRD-IN-HAND, Pennsylvania . . ."

Before I could flip out in passive aggressive angst, or get punched by Business Freak, I slipped out at my stop. I could hear the orgasmic laughter of the dweebs as the doors shut behind me. Part of me was relieved I didn't have to listen anymore, part was disappointed—what other wild and crazy names does the Amish country boast? And lastly I was left confused. Unless you're naming your “John Thomas” a bird, men, why is that name risqué exactly? Please answer in the comments section.

How Very Dare You!

Photo by  blmurch, via Flickr 

It’s spring and one should be humming and enjoying the strange OTT early heat, but unfortunately one (in other words, me) still has to deal with annoying commuters.

The day in question started off good enough. I was on the way uptown to babysit for my BFF. Since I had serious arse ache from sitting too long at work, I decided to walk several blocks to the East Side and catch the 6 train uptown. A coworker mentioned that if I just walked a few blocks more, I could catch an express bus that shot right uptown with only a few stops. She gave me specific directions and explained that a separate machine was used to purchase the ticket for the bus.

I was already happy just to find the bus and the machines, since I don’t have the best internal GPS. But then I was overcome with feelings of “all is well with the universe” when an attractive man in a suit offered me his ticket when he saw me fumbling with the machine. I was clearly not “in the express bus know,” and he took pity on me. I grasped the ticket and smiled, excited for the free bus ride. But boy, did I end up paying for it.

Squeezed between old people with stale breath and teenagers with noxious BO—the kind of stench that warrants a parent discussion that it’s time to use deodorant—I held on to a germ-infested bar and closed my eyes to block out the “others.” The first two stops glided by, and I was starting to feel giddy at the prospect of getting uptown quickly, above ground. At the next stop, a man who thought he was cool but looked like he just stepped off the set of a Miami Vice remake, barged on. He wore a cheap suit and dark shades and immediately started to barrel towards the back of the bus. That’s when I heard the annoying commuter strike.

“What do you THINK YOU ARE DOING?” a woman’s voice raised above the rest in an impossible-to-take-seriously overdramatic voice (think of Meryl Streep’s rendition of Julia Childs.)

“You PUSHED me!” she continued her outrage. Then, “You should be ASHAMED of yourself.”

I couldn’t help but giggle, as the woman’s voice conjured thoughts of the funny British sketch comedy program “The Catherine Tate Show” and her character Derek Faye, who routinely and dramatically screams out, “How very dare you!” (If you haven’t seen it, check it out here).

“DRIVER…STOP THE BUS” the woman called out, at which point my fellow New Yorkers started to lose patience, murmuring ‘what the hell’ and shifting in their seats.

“Look lady, it’s a crowded bus, it’s called ‘Riding the Bus 101’ here, maybe if you’d moved over more, I wouldn’t have pushed you,” said Don Johnson.

A sound like an injured animal spread across the bus as people reached their heads up to see what the ruckus was all about. “So now you’re going to INSULT me in addition to ASSAULT me!”

“Give me a break!” “Shut up!” “Get over it!” were the responses from various riders. But the woman would not be deterred. She continued to scream at the driver to stop the bus, which he did. An overweight MTA officer waddled over and asked Don Johnson to “step aside,” while the complainer (I could now see her: 60s, dress suit that looked like my grandmother’s couch upholstery, a tight bun and bedazzled in gold jewelry) stood red faced and indignant as people shuffled off the bus, shooting daggers at her.

Don Johnson took one look at the officer, laughed, and ran away as the complainer screamed “STOP THAT MAN!” The fellow passengers were told that the bus was now a crime scene and had to wait for another bus. No express bus came, so I got on a local, which stopped on every street from the 50s to the 70s. To make a long story short, I would have arrived uptown faster walking.

So to the bedazzled annoyer in question: Beware. Should our paths cross the next time I take the express bus, I will personally boot ya butt off if you start up with your shenanigans. YOU should be ashamed of yourself for preventing a crapload of people from getting home after a long, hard work/school day. That’s right! How very dare you!

Abbreviations for those who aren’t “with the times”
OTT: Over The Top
BFF: Best Fartin Friend
GPS: Global Positioning System
BO: Smelly FN Body. Slap on some roll-on. Seriously.

Notable Commuters: Weird Boots Guy

Fig. 1. Weird Boots

It’s been a while since I’ve just written a plain old observation. That, uh, is the name of the blog after all. And what better place to observe strange and fascinating creatures but within the MTA train system. As a creature of habit, I usually sit in the same train car every day. Unfortunately, so does a group of loud, obnoxious old men playing cards on what appears to be a pizza box. The first time I saw it, I was perplexed by how their group defied all unspoken rules of train etiquette. Whereas normally conversations or cell phone calls get you a look of death from other zombie commuters, these men shout, cheer and converse as if throwing back beers in a bar. Amid the noise of their gravelly smokers’ voices is the fluttery flipping of a deck of cards, conjuring images of leaves getting stuck in a bicycle spoke. Or similar. Not a card player myself (unless you count the drinking game “Asshole”), I have no idea what it is that has them so entranced. But I do hear them shouting things like “29? Is it 29? Whattawe got, 45 to 92?” What does it mean, readers? Anyone? Anyone?

This enigma aside, there is one passenger who gets on the train who cannot escape anyone’s attention. He is older, probably somewhere between, say 55 and 100. His tall, burly, Paul Bunyan physique is accented by a fluffy gray beard, a half smoked cigar hanging out of his mouth that he CHEWS all the way to the city, and—the icing on the cake—tall, knee-high funky black boots (see Fig. 1). The boots are what catch my attention every single day. If you only focused on them, you’d think (Punk Rocker? Goth? Motorcycle Mamma? Oktoberfest Partaker? Sadomasochist? Shit Shoveller?) until you look up and see that they are attached to Santa Claus with a bad cigar habit.

Weird Boots gets on the same car as me and immediately gravitates towards the card players like a fly to feces. He leans on the back of the six-seater they occupy and bends down, flagrantly invading their personal space. At first I thought he was part of the group—the silent observer, who, for lack of a seat, participates from above. But over the weeks, I’ve noticed he’s not. He is just a random guy, with weird boots, resting his cigar on the island pattern bald guy dealing the cards, watching every move they make like Big Brother watches all of us. When the train pulls in, he immediately exits without so much as a goodbye. The group in turn never greets his omnipresence with hello, goodbye, or what the feck are you looking at?!

Who is he readers? Only time will tell. For now I will continue to silently observe him as he silently observes them, while snapping secret photos of his boots (can I get a pair somewhere?) as I pretend to text my BFF in Spain.

The Pleasures of Paddy’s Day

Help! My feelings towards fellow commuters have reached an all time high of annoyance and hypocrisy! As an Irish American who, yes, is wearing green today, I should be delighting in the joy of other revelers as they mill about the train platform ready to join the herds heading into Manhattan for the St. Patrick ’s Day parade and subsequent drink fest. But I’m not. Instead I’m seething with irritation. It’s 8 a.m. and they’re already here! With their shamrock sunglasses and strange props, talking excitedly in flagrant disregard of the commuter train’s ‘no talk zone,’ a beer already in hand. And to make matters worse, among the horde I see my Worst Date Ever, the second such sighting on this train, looking as put out as I am by the invasion.

Just as I start to think to myself that the Paddy’s Day throng should have its own special train, I begin to realize how bitter—or amargada, as they would call me in Spain—I’ve become. When did this happen? Not so long ago, when I was ‘young,’ I too was heading down to the city with my friends, wearing green, carrying props, drinking in the street with glee. One year my best friend and I came to NYC to “watch the parade” but somehow couldn’t find it. Whether it was because we were under the influence of green beer, or just newbs to the big city, we traipsed about with the lonely call of bagpipes in the distance, drinking all day and ending up in St. Patrick’s cathedral chatting it up with an equally wasted priest.

So why the sudden change? Well, age, obvi. There have been other signs of the affliction (I cringe at today’s music, don’t know what a Bieber is). But in reality it comes down to this: I’m FN jealous. I secretly wish, with all that I am, I could shove the papers off my desk and announce I’m leaving work, finger guns a blazing as I exit the building, pull my hair out of my sensible ponytail, grab a beer from the first bar I pass, and do a freaking jig down 5th Ave with the rest of them. My envy, dear reader, is as green as their shamrocks!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Thanks, But No Thanks

Lately I’ve started thinking that I’m going soft. My anger towards fellow commuters, children and humans in general just doesn’t seem to be up to snuff. At first I thought perhaps in my "old" age, I was starting to chill out and be “tolerant.” Then I pondered that maybe commuters are just getting better (boy was that wishful thinking). I began to panic: what the crap will I blog about if not my general distaste and angst with the world?

But just as I was trolling through the New York Times on the train for something to spark an observation—while reading about how sloths have an extra few vertebrae in their necks (wtf?)—annoyance struck. How could I even doubt it would?

I’d chosen the “three seater” because sometimes you get lucky and the seat between you and the other passenger remains free. I glanced over to see what I was dealing with. It was a bleached blond, middle age, rotund woman with furrowed eyebrows and a pair of chins pulling down the corners of her lips. I rolled my eyes and opened my Nook. She pulled out her traditional “book” and started reading. Every time a passenger around us spoke, moved, shuffled or tittered, my seatmate would tsk, shake her head and even get up to stare the person into submission. Apparently it was “reading time at the zoo” and she didn’t want to be interrupted.

I immediately put my phone on silent and turned down my music so that I wouldn’t get the stare down. The train was filling up, and just before we pulled out, a teenage girl hovered over me and asked if I could move in a seat.

Admittedly, I was annoyed. I even sighed in passive aggressive anger. But before I could consent and slide over or deny her, my angry seat partner opened a can of whupass.

“Are ya kiddin me? That’s just great. Haven’t heard that one befoa. Who the hell do ya think you are?” she said in a horrible Long Island accent. The teenager, clueless as they tend to be, blushed.

“What?” She asked timidly.

Chubs continued to shake her head uncontrollably. “You neva ask someone to slide in. She was hea first. That’s RUDE.”

“Um, why is it, like, rude? The train is packed.”

“Why is it rude?” (More twitching, make-up laden eyes opening wide) “Because it’s common knowledge that the middle seat is the worst seat on the train. And this girl…” (pointing to me) “…is too nice to say no, so she’s just gonna move ova and suffa.”

Half of me wanted to tell her to F off and mind her own fartin business, that I’m certainly not too nice, just too tired to care, while the other half of me reveled in the apparent discomfort of the poor teenage girl—teenagers having long been on my list of people I don’t like.

“Well what am I supposed to do? Stand?” the sulky teenager whined.

“No, YOU sit in the middle,” my defender said, leaning over into my personal space and using my legs as a boobrest.

By this time the girl was close to tears and I was tired of being silent. “Oh just sit down,” I said sliding over next to my aghast neighbor. “Jesus none of the seats are good anyway.” I sighed loudly a la Napoleon Dynamite, cranked up my iPod, and shut my eyes to block out the indignant look of the angry woman who'd tried to plead my case. So now not only am I going soft, but I am defending the very species (the annoying commuter) I abhor so much.

College Girls In Washington Beware - Cocky Dork On The Loose!

This just in: Freshmen college girls who go to school in or around the vicinity of Union Station, Washington D.C., beware. There is a cocky dork on the loose, “collecting” any female who will fall for his pathetic pick-up lines. The boy was last seen on the Metro North train where he was visiting a friend from New York. He was dressed in a blue button-down Ralph Lauren shirt and freshly pressed (by his mamma) beige dockers, complete with untamed fro and a scattering of angry zits. While travelling from Chappaqua to Manhattan, he tried to convince his equally nerdy, but rightfully humble, pal to visit his college dorm in Washington in the fall. First, cocky dork tempted his friend with drink.

“Dude, if people aren’t going to your parties at your college, it’s cause you’re doing something wrong. You see, you can’t just lay out beer. You gotta get a handle of vodka, a handle of whisky, a handle of rum, and a handle of Everclear.” (Note to self: WTF is a handle? Or Everclear for that matter? Must Google.)

When this didn’t tempt the friend, who admitted that his university, Brown, wasn’t a big party school, the brazen geek turned to women.

“You get a great cross section,” he said. “You got the ‘Southern Bell’…the ‘I’m a Cute Artsy girl’…In fact, I work on a three-girl rotation. At least three. Definitely have to always have a brunette in there.”

Still not convinced, the cocksure dweeb pressed further. “There’s a 60/40 ratio of girls to guys. They go out in ‘packs’ of like 25…looking at it that way, someone has to bite.” And, if visiting in the summer, the odds are “literally” better, according to the nerd stallion. “Dude, we can sit at the outdoor pool. There are literally…LITERALLY 500 girls clad in bikinis, all just waiting to be banged. Hell, you could have ten of my girls and I’d still have a 100 left over.”

The nerd sometimes goes by the name “the closer.” (“Dude, if you can’t seal the deal, call me in…I’ll close it for you). He frequents a bar called “Turtle,” where he usually starts off his night and gets “retarded” before heading on to Faye’s. He is most likely harmless and a virgin, despite his outrageous tall tales of being attacked by a swarm of women every night.

“The only problem with coming to visit me is…you’ll want to come back. Everybody does,” he was last heard saying as he exited the train.

So college girls, if this sounds like anyone you know, be on red alert. Tell all your friends to run the other way if the nerd is seen approaching in an attempt to “close” the deal. Gently remind him that he is full of shit and has no experience whatsoever, regardless of his claims of “wanting to get into some really funky sexual shit…taking it to the next level” (note to self: assume here he means taking it from his own hand to an actual person). Also be aware that this behavior is rampant in college frash frat boys, and the profile can probably be extrapolated to other colleges and boys of this age group.

Crack Kills

Photo by rumblemumbles / Elisha, via Flickr

I know, I know. It’s been several weeks since my prolific meanderings about annoying people have graced the screen. I’d like to say that my lack of witty bloggage was due to some extravagant vacation in Dubai. But, alas, the cause of my absence was pure laziness. As in, when I get home from work and my two hour commute, my new leather reclining couch beckons my bum, and it’s all over. I guess what I needed to jumpstart the creative flow was a little crack.

Noooo, not that crack. Buttcracks. And plenty of them. All one need do is go to the closest park, in my case, Madison Park on 26th and Broadway, to see the abundance of behinds escaping the confines of people’s pants, skirts, shorts, etc, while they lounge on the grass eating their lunch, taking a nap or sunbathing. I guess the heat is bringing everyone—including the tops of their tushes—out of the woodwork. And while I suppose a little ‘plumber’ is innocent enough (although, can’t they feel the draft?) and having lived in a country where topless on the beach was not only acceptable, but the norm–and while I hate to be the typical nude-a-phobe American–I’m growing a little weary of seeing certain body parts around town.

Take said park for example. While some amount of muffin top and ass spillage is expected, why do some guys insist on stripping down to their Speedos (complete with not so discreet chub) while napping in the park? And since rampant obesity has leveled the playing field, men can now flaunt their sagging (bigger than mine!) breasts in the sun. But why is that OK when there’s all the hoopla about women exposing theirs a la Ms. Jackson?

That said, I suppose a park is somewhat like the beach where everything goes. But the train is not. I had to laugh the other day at a flier left on the train seats by MTA, which had an amusing “Courtesy Corner” section listing some tips from Mr. Manners, George Washington. (Primp not yourself in the sight of others nor gnaw your nails, for example). As I glanced across at the woman next to me, my mouth dropped in horror as I saw her remove a shoe and unleash her naked, mangled, bunioned foot, which she wriggled around in ecstasy before planting it on the seat in front of her. I thought she was just rude, but the following day, as I crossed four cars in search of a seat, I saw several other people with their bare, nasty feet stretched out across the seats, where I could have been sitting. This included a guy (bald with one single Rasta braid hanging down his back [wtf?]) in a business suit, who actually took off a pair of black dress socks before depositing his feet (and toe jam) onto the opposite seat.

If only George could see us now! He’d have to update his tips to include spread not your smelly, dirty feet where others may choose to sit, air not the crack of your butt in the presence of others, and flaunt not your manboobs in public parks.

Earwig's Delight: Underwear Partay

I was sitting on the train attempting to read, when an overly loud (but fascinating) phone conversation assaulted me and everyone else in a two car vicinity. The offender was a thirty something man, with big cushy headphones over a baseball hat and a cell phone ear attachment. It went something like this:

“Dude. What are you doing this weekend? Nothin? Well I’ve got three words for you: under…wear…party.”
….
“Five floors. Girls in underwear. Ten bucks to get in. You in?”
…
“I don’t know man, my girl got VIP passes or some shit.”
…
“Ummm, it’s an underwear party dude. It’s ten bucks, half naked girls, five floors…F*ck yeah, I’m going. Now what about you?”
...
“So…what you’re sayin is, you’d rather sit at your boy’s house instead of going to an underwear party and get p*ssy. I’m talkin’ insane p*ssy. Crazy amounts of p*ssy.”
….
“OK, lemme put it to you another way. Dude…SHUT UP. Let me put it to you another way. You know how crazy it is when I go out in White Plains and have like three drinks? FIVE FLOORS SON.”
…
“Ten bucks…p*ssy!”

(here the conductor swiftly approached and asked him to keep it down, as the morning commuting zombies were actually defrosting and twitching in rage at this burst of immoral, dirty debauchery. After pausing and asking two 12 year old boys next to him if they had fake IDs and were interested in attending the party and showing them photos of his ‘girl’ from last year’s underwear fest, he called his friend back, much to my delight).

“So. Underwear party. You going? Dude, that’s why you drink before you go. We’ll get a bottle. We’ll get a few forties. We’ll get on the train. We’ll get RI.DIC.U.LOUS.”
…
“Why is everyone having such a problem with this? It’s ten bucks. Underwear. P*ssy dude. It’s going to be out of control!”
…
“Fine. Don’t go. I guess I’ll just take a load of pictures so you can say…John…you were right.”
...
“So, wanna get some beers and go fishing?”

Who Does That?

I was reading an article in the New York Times this morning about some New York City bus drivers who are taking extended leaves of absence because they're being abused by disgruntled public transport users. Now I’m not talking about yelling, arm waving, eye rolling, frothing at the mouth, heavy sighing, foot stomping or any of the other displays of anger that I myself am guilty of committing. As I wrote last week, we are one angry city. But this new phenomenon is worse. It’s spitting.

I know this isn’t very eloquent of me, but all I can say is EWWWWAAA. Seriously? Who does that? Spitting has to be one of the most vile things a person can do. Already, far too many people hawk it up in public, spitting on the sidewalk and forcing pedestrians to dodge not only ubiquitous dog droppings, but their germafied spittle as well, or on the train tracks where they cough up their cigarette-induced morning phlegm. Some do it discreetly and quietly into a tissue (t.g.), while others feel the need to really crank it up with an accompanying rumbling gurgle that makes me wanna puke. FYI: use the bathroom and do it out of earshot, people, not on the train next to me.

But this is worse than the semi-innocent and seemingly necessary part of life that is clearing one’s throat and expectorating. To actually launch your unwanted bodily fluids at someone else is just lame. And it spreads illness…nobody wants your swine flu or tuberculosis, mmmkay?

In the article, Nancy Shevell, the chairwoman of the authority’s bus committee, suggests that going home and taking a nap might help solve the drivers’ post-traumatic stress of being spit on, and that leaves of absence may be excessive. Sorry, sleeping it off doesn't cure being spitballed. It's not just a matter of brushing it off and going on your merry way. It’s humiliating, gross, dirty and unnecessary. For someone who goes to work every day and has to haul around all of New York’s demanding, irritating, and now rabid, commuters, I too think I’d say why the flying F should I go to work today and put up with this shi-at? I can just imagine angry authors coming in to my journal and spitting on me because I put an en dash in place of a hyphen.

The article also had some interesting insight. Apparently all this time I was writing angry posts about commuting, I didn’t realize that I was suffering from a syndrome called “Aisle Rage,” which Alan E. Pisarski writes about in his report “Commuting in America.” I feel so much better that it's an actual condition and that I'm not alone.

While I can certainly understand the annoyance evoked by declining mass transit and increased costs, drivers are not to blame, and can’t be anywhere near as horrible as us passengers, so we’d do better to show a little more appreciation. Let’s grow up a little, and keep our saliva to ourselves.

Anger Management

Warning: I'm about to become the world’s biggest hypocrite. If you’ve read my blog before, perhaps you might suggest that I rename it “The Angry Commuter.” And I won’t attempt to deny that people irk me on a daily basis and that yes, it makes me angry. But today I witnessed an outburst on the train that made me question our extreme level of uptightness. Yes, my friends. I'm now defending the “annoying commuter.”

I was sitting quietly, editing a snoozefest medical paper, only mildly annoyed at the guy sitting next to me who smelled like a stomach turning mix of coffee and rotten cheesedoodles. Suddenly an irritating voice broke the silence as a young girl in front of me began talking on her cell to who seemed to be her headhunter about a job interview. Within 15 minutes, I knew her life story: she was a bartender and a temp, had a job she just accepted out of desperation, but really wanted a potential new job in advertising and was hoping for a salary “above 30.” Should she wear a “full suit” (as opposed to half?) or something more casual to the interview? Should she tell the job she just accepted that she had another interview? Should she tell Jessica? No, but really, like, should she tell Jessica?

As I sat sighing loudly with passive aggressive angst, thinking to myself “shut the helladeria up,” someone suddenly did it for me. A man actually leapt out of his chair across from us and shouted “Shut the Fuck Up Already!” The girl immediately lowered her voice, but continued to talk for the rest of the train ride, while the angry man across from us slid down into his seat, red faced and shaking, wiping a froth of saliva from his mouth.

At first I thought, thank the holy heavens someone else said it. But then I started to feel bad for the annoying talker (this is where I become a raging hypocrite). Is it really so bad to talk on the phone for a few minutes? Especially when it's a necessary call like one from a headhunter? Why are New Yorkers so angry about cell phone use? I mean, yes, it’s annoying when one has to overhear inane conversations from a teenager bragging about how wasted he got last night or a husband snapping at his wife that she was the last one to hold the freiken keys so she’d better find them. But is it a reason to jump up and curse and froth like a rabid dog? Should there not be some kind of intermediate action taken, i.e., “Hey, do you mind keeping it down please?”

When I lived in Barcelona, the train going to the city was an assault on all of the senses. When the doors opened, people would literally fall out because it was so jam packed. If you were brave enough to squeeze in, you’d encounter people talking to each other animatedly; kids swinging from the rafters; dueling ring tones clashing with each other; people chatting on their phones with reckless abandon, screaming no me digues! or que fuerte, tio!; old people with scowls on their face stating the obvious (huele de cabra aqui, eh?); music (an occasional belting out of a song while listening to an ipod); and street performers playing the awful accordion. You were lucky if you got a seat; instead you’d be smashed up against people, feeling an old man’s groin in your butt and smelling the smoke breath of the person in front of you. But there was something alive about it.

After the man's cell phone flip out on the train, I looked around and saw three out of four people with laptops, working away. The only background noise was mechanical typing, the conductor’s call for tickets, and the clicking of the ticket puncher. It felt like a classroom after a teacher's reprimand. My office at work is louder. Yes, it was quiet…but it seemed so wrong…like a sterilized lab room.

I’ve witnessed manic train explosions before. Once a kid was playing his music without headphones and a businessman jumped up, got two inches from the kid’s face and said “Shut. It. Off.” Hell, I once yelled at a shrew who was complaining to the conductor. But we should ask ourselves what it is that we're all so pissed off about. If someone speaking on the phone can make us blow like the Eyjafjallajokul volcano, maybe we all need a session in anger management.