No Farting Allowed, People

So was sitting on the train yesterday on my way to a nice Mother’s Day dinner… when the train doors opened at 42nd a bunch of people packed into the car… and after we pulled away I smelled someones fart… and I am pretty sure it emanated from the obese, middle aged black lady who sat down next to me.

I guess if you’ve got to fart, you’ve got to fart… but come on people… it’s seriously nasty… offensive really…

Cool Guy Won’t Hold Onto the Rails

Ever see these people — the ones who are too cool to hold onto a rail? They just plant their feet and assume they’re Not going to fall into you when they [inevitably] lose their balance?

These are the people I think should be drug off the train and shot.

Flying Foul: Passengers Behaving Badly

My pal Chrissie Dos Tetas fwded me this article from this week’s Wall Street Journal. Definitely worth posting to this site… in its entirety… Copyright laws are for pussies… Enjoy:

Flying Foul: Passengers Behaving Badly

Rude Neighbors, Messes Left  In Seat Pockets Proliferate; Exploring the Revenge MotiveMay 6, 2008; Page D1

You’ll never look at, or reach into, an airline seat-back pocket the same after reading this.

Besides being a repository for magazines, newspapers, books, iPods and air-sickness bags, seatback pockets get stuffed with all kinds of disgusting trash, from toenail clippings to mushy meals.

People do things on airplanes that they would never do in other public settings. They pluck eyebrows, polish nails and pick noses. They stick chewed gum in places only other passengers will discover. They blow noses into blankets that get folded up for the next weary traveler. They prop bare feet up on bulkheads and seats. Sometimes they even engage in sex acts.

One reason frequent fliers and flight attendants perceive an increase in offensive behavior may be the decline in air service — customers seek retaliation for late flights, snippy workers, lost baggage and unavailable upgrades.

“Increasingly, passengers are certain that the airlines are not on their side and actually don’t care anything about them,” said Irwin Sarason, a University of Washington psychologist in Seattle who has studied passenger behavior. “In that kind of environment, it isn’t too surprising that people will not exercise the restraints they normally would.

Though crammed together elbow-to-elbow in more-public conditions than you’d find at a shopping mall, restaurant, church or office, airline passengers sometimes behave as though the cabin were their own small nesting place — and one where they never have to worry about cleanliness, either.

Steve Cuzzone, finance director for a Birmingham, Ala., manufacturer, has found old french fries, a festering baby diaper, half a hamburger, used Kleenex and wet napkins in seat-back pockets. He put a book in once and pulled it out to find the bottom covered in a melted candy bar.

“If you sit in a middle seat, never look in — those are the riskiest ones,” he said, noting that children often sit between parents and that passengers will dispose of their grossest things in an unoccupied middle seat.

Patrick Kerr, who like Mr. Cuzzone participated in a FlyerTalk.com online discussion among frequent travelers of disgusting things people do aboard airplanes, was flying from Reno, Nev., to Dallas when a nearby passenger put a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth and spit juice into a plastic cup throughout the flight.

As passengers left the plane, Mr. Kerr, a technology manager in St. Louis, said, the man made one last deposit then tucked the cup deep into the seat pocket.

“I said, ‘Hey, you left that.’ And he said, ‘It’s OK. They’ll get it,’ ” said Mr. Kerr, who then alerted a flight attendant.

Flight attendants often say that the biggest messes they have to deal with are dirty diapers left in seat-back pockets or worse, handed to them while they are serving beverages and snacks. “Would you hand that off to your server at a restaurant?” said Corey Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants, a union representing workers at several big airlines. “It’s amazing how people treat the inside of aircraft cabins as opposed to other public spaces.”

The detritus problem is exacerbated by the fact that most airplanes are only lightly cleaned between each flight. Airlines say planes get a more thorough cleaning overnight and a “deep cleaning” scheduled about every 30 days. In many cases, seat-back pockets aren’t thoroughly checked until overnight cleaning crews work over a cabin. “Flight attendants will clean things they see sticking out of seat pockets in between flights, but the deep-down cleaning is reserved for later,” says Philip Gee, a US Airways Group Inc. spokesman. At several airlines, including Southwest Airlines Co., flight attendants handle most of the cleanup between flights. AMR Corp.’s American Airlines and UAL Corp.’s United Airlines have cleaning crews pick up trash, fold blankets and replenish supplies between flights. United says its crews brush off seats and replace headsets, too, between flights.

Eric Kaldenberg, a Phoenix regional sales manager, was on a flight home from Las Vegas in March with a passionate couple in first class who were anything but discreet.

“It was pretty disgusting,” Mr. Kaldenberg said. He says he and other first-class passengers complained to flight attendants, but no action was taken. He wrote to US Airways, which offered a form-letter apology and voucher for a discount on a future ticket, along with a suggestion that he could have asked to be reseated if the couple bothered him. “I regret your discomfort when observing inappropriate behavior of another passenger,” US Airways’ Customer Relations office said in the letter. His second complaint drew an apologetic phone call from a customer-service supervisor, he says. US Airways’ Mr. Gee says the suggestion that Mr. Kaldenberg should be reseated “probably wasn’t the correct response.” The flight attendant involved “should have talked to the couple,” he said.

While some people are testing boundaries or acting out when away from spouses, friends or seemingly any authority, experts say that for others, air travel leaves people psychologically off-kilter and more likely to do things they wouldn’t normally do. Some lose control because the flying experience strips them of all control — you’re told where to sit, when to sit and when you will arrive.

In addition, many people have difficulty being stuffed in close proximity with others and forced to share space, whether it’s overhead bin space, armrests or space taken away when the person in front reclines. As planes get more crowded, people get more cramped. The decline in air service likely has also exacerbated the problem. Some people are simply mad at airlines and seek retribution.

“Putting a melting chocolate bar in a seatback is a way of punishing the airline for shoddy treatment,” said Robert Bor, a clinical aviation psychologist in London.

What’s more, air travel is largely anonymous and, removed from everyday reality, people perceive few consequences to bad behavior. Just the opposite is true: Federal law requires that travelers comply with crew instructions, and penalties for disruptive behavior aboard airplanes can be harsh.

Adding to the dehumanizing of travel is the advent of kiosks, self-service check-in and other money-saving automations. With little interaction with airline employees, some of whom may be grumpy and surly anyway, customers have little emotional connection to airlines, so why worry about trashing their airplanes?

“Some rather enjoy offending others,” Dr. Bor said.

Write to Scott McCartney at middleseat@wsj.com⁴

Victory

Due to a career transition, looks like I won’t have to ride the subway (at least not as a daily ritual) for the next few months… possibly years even…

I can’t believe this is actually happening to me… I’m the luckiest guy in the city, folks… 

The only problem, of course, is that now I’ll have to find something else to complain about/make the focus of this blog.  Alternately, I can find someone who’s still stuck on the subway to carry the torch for me here while I broaden my horizons and launch the just plain old “Angry Guy” blog.

Not sure if I should conclude this post “Good Luck” or “Fuck You All”… 

yeah, right…

Fuck You All.

- Angry Subway Guy

Hate the French

My god, they are even worse than the Germans.

On a long flight home yesterday I ended up in a row next to a middle aged French woman and her daughter.  Daughter sat in the window, woman was in the middle. 

Rather than taking up her own daughter’s personal space, she found it necessary to take up mine.  For example, when she slept, she turned in my direction which resulted in a fair amount of knee-bumping.  In addition, upon returning from a bathroom break I found her reading with her arm covering the entire shared armrest – including my TV control (JetBlue again) – which was totally unacceptable.  I just pretended it wasn’t there and stuck my fingers into her arm to adjust the control.  Of course, once again, she left the armrest on her daughter’s side totally unattended.  The girl wasn’t even using it – she was sleeping.

Fucking French. 

Personal TV’s in Airplanes Aren’t Always a Good Thing

JetBlue does it right, because the remote control for the TV is embedded in the armrest.Other airlines like Delta require customers to physically tap the screen itself to adjust the channels, which invariably leads to people poking each-other throughout the flight.  For crying out loud, if you’re going to use the touch screen system add a section to the instructional pre-flight video and safety demonstration informing my fellow idiotic passengers that changing the channel requires only a light touch. Pressing harder will get you no where but in trouble with the Angry Subway Guy seated on front of you.

People Who Check Themselves Out in the Reflection Suck

I hate it when the person standing or sitting facing my direction is checking themselves out using the reflection in the window.  It’s okay to take a quick glance, but you end up making people feel quite uncomfortable when the quick glance turns into an obsessive non-stop glare with you turning your face from one angle to the next in an effort to look better.  It’s also just plain tacky.

 

How People End Up On My Site…

So WordPress (the tool I use to publish this blog) gives its users a snap shot of search terms that people have used to get to their blogs during the most recent two days… Below is the chart I’m seeing right now…

The moral of the story, as you will see, is that typing “big asses” into Google is one of the best ways to find the Angry Subway Guy blog.  It’s currently the 5th highest ranked web site for that term… in the whole wide world, thank you very much… The magic post, of course, is “When Big Assess Squeeze Into Small Spaces, Volume 2“.  Like the Godfather and Kill Bill before it… #1 was great but #2 was when I really came into my own as an artist.

Today

Search	Views
big assess	5
fat person in small space	2
angry people on the subway	1
angry subway guy	1
old asian lady subway	1
angry old guy	1

Yesterday

Search	Views
big assess	2
flying puss pimple	1
fat guys in a small coat	1
all categories small asses	1
subway squeeze 2	1
“i hate the subway”	1
women legs wide open	1

OKay just one more observation… “flying puss pimple”??? Dude, what the hell is wrong with you?…

The Key to Sanity

Get to work late.

Get on the train at 9am or later.  Lots of other people will be around, but the extremities of the train will always be less crowded due to the fact that most of the neurotic folks who live in this town must be right on front of the exit turnstiles when the train pulls into their stop.

Ride on the first or last car.  You’re guaranteed to have more personal space than you will anywhere else.  And you are even likely to get a seat within a few stops — if you aren’t already seated, that is.

I almost regret writing this post… But so few people read this shit anyway, so why not? 

How To Fix It

This is going to piss off some people… BUT

The solution to the subway problem is tiered pricing. 

Idea is a separate section or preferably a whole different “alongside” system that is business class…

It wouldn’t even need to be that much more expensive. Even a $1 daily difference would result in a monthly total that would probably segregate the subways into two classes — the subway haves and subway have-nots [plus the homeless and other dregs of society]. 

Why does it work?  Some people will always go for the savings while others will pony up for a closer chance at sanity.  And it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

- Angry Subway Guru