People don’t set out to be jerks. I believe
that. Nobody leaves the house and says, “Hey! I think I’ll try to
be really awful to complete strangers today.” And yet, some of them
achieve utter rancidness without breaking a sweat. —
There was a problem with the 7 train last week. I take the
7 train to get to my son’s preschool in the afternoons. If I don’t pick him up
by 4:30, he apparently gets
thrown out on the street to fend for himself.
So, when the 7 is not acting like the 7 ought to act, I get
tense. I get quietly tense, not screaming-and-shoving tense. Not
take-it-out-on-all-humanity tense. I was tense last week when I had to
navigate my way around a non-functional 7 line to get to my kid.
I won’t go into detail about how I eventually got to the
preschool. Suffice it to say, there was much Google-mapping and a very
brisk walk across a long bridge. I managed to get there before the Kid
was abandoned to the wolves of Queens, but then I had to
decide how to get back home.
The 7 was running as far as Queensboro Plaza and then was being sent back
the way it came. Fortunately, at Queensboro Plaza, I could grab an N back to Manhattan,
so it seemed that it wouldn’t be too horribly tricky.
What I hadn’t factored in was how so many other people would
be reacting to the 7’s problems.
Good god.
I need to pause here to inform readers that my son is now
entering Big Boy territory. He does not like to go anywhere in his
stroller and he’s actually pretty good about walking these days. So we’ve
been leaving the stroller at home as much as possible.
So, when the 7 pulled in to Queensboro Plaza, my independent little
three-year-old was not in a stroller. He was on his feet, holding my hand
and ready to walk off the train.
The doors opened and we took our place at the back of the
line of folks exiting the car. There was a decent number of us leaving
the train; enough so that the hordes waiting outside lost their patience and
started to freak out that they might not get a seat.
Subsequently, while the three people in front of us were
still trying to walk out the door, the frenzied zombies outside began to shove
their way in. After the first person had pushed his way inside, everyone else
kicked it into high gear and threw away any remaining shred of consideration or
caring for their fellow man that had been left in them.
They shoved forward as my little son–he’s tiny, relative to
most other commuters–was trying to get off. They buffeted him. They knocked off his hat. He started to cry.
We made it, with one or two curse words muttered under my
breath through the throng and turned to glare at them before making our way
down the platform. The kid was crying, but unharmed. The hat was
back on his head. We were no worse for wear.
This is not enough to send me to my local Hyundai dealer so
I can avoid public transportation, but it left me angry for a while afterwards. And I’m still marveling at how some people are able to put their desire to sit
down ahead of someone else’s physical well-being.
If you’re so freaked out about getting on the train quickly
enough to sit that you’re willing to trample a three-year-old, re-examine your
priorities. Please.
