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.