Dear New Yorkers & Tourists, Please Learn How to Ride the Subway

Okay, so living in New York, you take the subway everywhere. And I like it, I really do. I like the fact that it runs 24/7 (even though there are always strange, unplanned, and unexplained detours and re-routes on weekends & holidays); I like the fact that I can get 95% of my monthly transportation needs taken care of on $81 a month (and possibly with an occasional freebie!); I like that I don’t have to deal with car insurance or maintenance or parking. I like the fact that living car-free gives me the luxury to say (and believe) sort-of-pompous things like “I think rising gas prices are a good thing since economic inviability of maintaining a gas-power-based economy is the only thing that will ever push us as a nation to seriously invest in alternative energy research,” the first part of which I doubt I would say if I actually had to fill up a tank every week. I really, really love the fact that I'm free to ride home drunk as, say, Diana Barry after several tumblersful of “raspberry cordial” (which happens quite frequently), without fear of killing myself or someone else. But what I Do Not Love is freaking other people. Who don't know how to put the communal property that is the subway to our collective good use. You know who you are. Let me educate you.

How To Ride the Subway In a Manner That Does Not Violate the Social Contract

1. Move to the center.

2. Out-of-towners, don’t let your children sit on the floor during rush hour. A) The floors are gross. B) It is way too crowded for your princesses to lounge at their leisure. C) It is too gd early in the morning for me to think about this. You are annoying.

3. Don’t hook your elbow (or, god forbid, your knee) around the center pole. You’ll inevitably fold your arm close to your body, and thus smush your body to the pole, and the next thing I know you are twined around it like the car is a back room at Gallagher’s 2000 and the strobes and music are about to start. I need something to grab onto, and I can’t if your body is draped over 98% of the pole. Women, this is especially true for you. I will get my hands on part of that pole, and since I’m 5’5” chances are that your boobs are smushed against it somewhere in the vicinity of where my hand needs to be. I am completely capable of standing, stone-faced, through an entire ride where your sideboob brushes against my knuckles if you are not capable of picking up the body-language hint and standing back a bit. You are annoying.

4. Uncross your legs if it’s rush hour to save room. Seriously, I’m glad you scored a seat. Now can I have four inches of floor space to step forward a little bit, or are you really that intent on bringing me and the dude behind me into carnal relations?

5. Do not spit on the floor. Or drop your sunflower seed shells on the floor. Do. Not.

6. Move to the center.

7. Don’t read, Blackberry, PS2, or anything else on your way out of the subway cars or up the stairs. I am a huge proponent of reading. I have been known to go hours without sleep to finish a book. I even gave it up for Lent once as a sacrifice to God, back when I was serious about God, because I love it that much. But nothing you are reading can be that important. Make your way up the stairs at a reasonable pace, exit the station, and resume reading later.

8. Don’t stop at the top of the stairs or directly outside them. I don’t care if it’s raining. Move three feet out and to the side before you start digging around in your giant, ugly Vera Bradley tote bag for your expensive, ugly Burberry umbrella. You can do it.

9. Don’t stop directly in front of the single turnstile to find your Metrocard. You are annoying.

10. Don’t go up the “down” side of the stairs if you are going to go at the speed of molasses in winter. The left side of the stairwell is like the oncoming-traffic lane on a dotted-line, two-lane country road. You’re allowed to shoot into it, rev up to pass a slower motorist, and scoot back into your lane on the right. What you are not allowed to do is wander into it and hang out there til the road runs out. If you do this, a semi is going to come roaring down and you will have a five-passenger pileup and it will not be pretty. You're probably a tourist, so you probably have a car, so you should understand this analogy.

11. Do not try to flirt with me on the morning commute. I’m tired, hot, and touching way too many other people simultaneously. All I want to do is be back in bed (without you). In fact, the entire train is also wishing to be back in bed, and therefore it is veerrry quiet, and therefore everyone can hear every pathetic double entendre and attempted sexual riposte you’re making. It is awkward. You are not sexy. You are annoying.

12. Move. To. The. GD. Center. That about covers it, I think.

Hearts, me