Subway Hanging Contest

I was riding the subway home from church one Sunday not long ago. I was on my way to meet a couple of my condo floor mates (from the two units beside me) for lunch and was running a bit late.

I got on the southbound subway at St. Patrick station intending to take it around the loop at Union Station and back up to Eglinton, my stop.

Since I was short on time I wanted to try to get to the subway car nearest to the front of the train. That way when I arrived at Eglinton Station I could immediately go up the stairs and run over to my condo (where I was supposed to meet my friends in the lobby).

Unfortunately I only made it to car number 3 (from the front) when the train arrived in the station. So that's where I hopped in. I knew the train would stop a bit longer at Union Station and planned to move up one car there.

When we arrived at Union Station I quickly changed cars (before the doors closed and would end up stranding me until the next train arrived).

I found a seat opposite these four 20-something-year-old girls, two of which were getting ready to have a "Hanging Contest". Basically they were waiting for the train to start moving then they would see who could last longest hanging from the ceiling bar.

All four of them moved up the car a bit to a less crowded spot because they thought they might inadvertently kick someone while they were hanging there.

One girl who was sitting brought her smartphone out and her friend said, she'd better not be videotaping them. The smartphone girl said she was just taking pictures. She then turned to me and said I should join in their contest.

At first I resisted, saying I'd just watch. But, then I thought, why not, and opted to join in.

It was pretty funny. The subway car wasn't that full, but I'm sure the passengers there probably thought we were crazy. We were laughing our heads off all the way up towards King Station.

The girl on the far right of the photo dropped first. It was harder than she anticipated. The girl in the middle and I lasted until one of the other girls who was sitting figured, enough was enough, and tried to tickled us so we'd let go.

Silly fun.

Manners people!

It's disconcerting to me the general lack of manners people have these days. I was riding the subway home the other night when I boarded the northbound Yonge train at Bloor. I took a seat with a few other people when the train arrived. It was late in the evening so it wasn't that busy. As it sometimes happens the train didn't depart right away perhaps waiting for a few more riders to come.

Across from me sat a woman of around 40. She had pulled out a thin catalogue she was leafing through after she settled into her seat. A few moments later a young man entered the car and asked her in a quiet voice if this train was going north. Engrossed in her catalogue she didn't respond. When he said, "Ma'am" to gain her attention she replied in a cold tone, "yes" to confirm his earlier enquiry (which I guess she did hear, but chose to ignore). She did all this without even giving him the basic courtesy of looking up from what she was reading. How rude is that? She couldn't even take a moment to lift her eyes from her catalogue to show the bare minimum of politeness when responding to his question. It's disappointing to me to see behavior like this going on. When you ask for something you say, please. When you receive it you say, thank-you. When somebody sneezes you say, bless you. It's not that hard.

While we're at it... Another thing I that perturbs me about people on public transit, particularly the subway, is that many people don't let all the passengers off the train before they board. What's wrong with you people? Can you not wait five seconds longer to let everyone off before you barge onto the train? Even worse, some people don't wait at all. They try to board as soon as the doors open without letting anyone off. They need manner police to stand by the doors and whack people over the head with rolled up newspapers when they do things like that. If you don't know your manners by now, perhaps beating it into your thick skulls is the only way you'll learn.

Sorry... I just had to get that off my chest.