Planes, Trains and Automobiles

...And common sense. Why is it that people seem to not know how to conduct themselves in public these days – and probably in private?!

In my recent trip to from the cradle of civilization (that’s right, southwest Virginia) to New York City, I had some curious incidents along the way. Many involved various modes of transportation. In the picture seen here, Goucher College Creative Nonfiction guru Patsy Sims and fellow student Deanna Mayer lead the effort to figure out our way through subterranean New York. I’ll hand out some cheers and jeers (yeah, I know this idea is stolen, but I haven’t had nearly enough sleep of late – by the way, Kevin Nunley, hope you had a great birthday bash Thursday night!)

Cheers: My taxi driver in NYC. Three of us get in the car. We tell the guy an address. He doesn’t talk and takes us to where we want to go. This is opposed to a cab driver I had in D.C. a couple months ago. Me and a friend get in, give the cab driver the address, and he turns in to Chatty Cathy.

Look, I just want a ride to my desired destination. Unless this is Taxicab Confessions, I don’t want you to be chatting it up with me. If I have questions or comments, I’ll make them. Your unsolicited insights on music are not what I want to hear on my way to dinner.

Jeers: The awkward family. I’m in the airport in Roanoke, Va., and trying to buy a Coke, and this family is getting in my way and on my nerves. The mom is taking forever to make a simple purchase at the counter. One of the sons is hovering in front of me. The kid is probably 11 or 12 but is big for his age. He was about as big as me. But by that age you should have learned about 1. personal space and 2. not walking up and standing in front of somebody in a line. So the mom buys each of the two sons a whole pack of some sort of crappy gummy candy products and then they all proceeded to lurk around the waiting area. The little brother seemed to be trying to avoid the big brother, who would just follow him around. Listen, people. Don’t wander in an airport. Your airport awkwardness makes people nervous. Get your snack and either sit down or stand against a wall somewhere.

Jeers: The homophobe on the train from Manhattan to Newark. This lady is well dressed and speaks in a Jamaican-sounding accent. She’s on her cell phone on a morning train from Penn Station to the Newark Liberty International Airport. She’s talking very plainly to someone (possibly her child) about not bringing a lesbian into her home. “It’s against my faith,” she repeated at least a dozen times as she proceeded to say that she didn’t want a “faggot” at her house. OK, I could easily jeer her for the hypocrisy of talking about her faith while being judgmental and narrow-minded and using terms such as faggot, but that’s not even my point. Why do you talk to someone on a cell phone in a very public place about matters of sexual preference? “When you’re old enough,” she would say quite plainly, you can make your own decisions, but right now I don’t want no homosexuals in my house. It’s against my faith.” Well perhaps your faith should incorporate common sense so you wouldn’t sound like a broken record on the phone in public while discussing a very private matter. After she continued to raise the volume on her voice, fully showing all of us on the train her ire, she ended up hanging up on the person she was talking to.

Cheers: To the friendly people of the Big Apple. New Yorkers have a reputation for being rude – or at least too busy and self-absorbed to offer a kind word or even a look in the eye. Our group, struggling to find its way to various addresses around Manhattan and taking the subway from one place to another, stopped people on the street and in the tunnels several times to ask questions. All were friendly and gave courteous replies. One guy even told us to follow him and led us to the appropriate street from out of the subway, then handed one of our group members his business card and said if we needed anything else while we were in town to let him know. And just as I was losing my faith in humanity … .

Well that’s it for now. Have a good weekend.