Riding public transit can be less than awesome at the best of times. We say this from personal experience and the weekly griping of co-workers. But it doesn’t have to be so bad. Here are some friendly suggestions for riders to follow and make the ride better for the rest of us.
1. Public transit is not your bathroom.
Pretty obvious. But we’re surprised how many times we see people flossing their teeth, applying makeup and clipping their nails while riding the loser cruiser. Everyone knows you clip your nails at the office.
2. Public transit is not a restaurant or lunchroom.
We realize you’re in a hurry. You’ve got stuff to do, people to see, websites to surf, Miami Vice fan fiction to write. But eating on the bus shows a weakness of character. Have some respect for yourself. It’s bad enough that you inflict Subway and Tim Horton’s on your pale, flabby body, but how about doing it in private, preferably with a deep feeling of shame. Nobody wants to smell your stinky food, let alone watch you stuff it into your slop-covered garburator of a mouth.
3. Public transit is not a dance club or concert hall.
We get it, you dig music — it’s what you and your dorky oversized headphones live for. But we have our own soundtrack that we’d rather hear — it’s called the rhythm of the night. (It’s an El DeBarge song — look it up.) Same goes for all you dirty hippies who think the rest of us are charmed by your noodling guitar antics. We aren’t. Unless of course you can cover “Crazy Horses” by the Osmonds, which you probably can’t, because it’s pretty wicked.
4. Public transit is not a telephone booth.
We realize telephone booths don’t even exist anymore, but that doesn’t mean you have to recreate them on the bus by having inane conversations on your cellphone about how your mom is starting to lose it or how you’re really looking forward to telling Tara to go eff herself because she’s had it coming ever since she started dating Doug, who really needs to see a dentist, cuz that sh** he’s got going on in there is gnarly.
