Friday's Subway

    You can always sense an experience subway rider. They show excellent balance as the train stops and starts, as it jerks around, and sways from side to side. They don't need the help of poles to hold onto or for those who remember the 20th century, the straps, when subway riders were known as straphangers. As impressive as that can be, the well experienced subway rider is no match for the junkies who seemingly can defy gravity as the bend over forward, backward, and even on one leg as the younger subway riders act like they're in a plane during a death spiral hurdling towards Earth. 

   Today I spent a few hours on the subway mostly observing how people handle the ride and to put it politely it was a clusterfuck. Once again you can separate the experienced riders from the rest. They know how to enter and exit a subway car, they know how and where to stand, and usually spot an incident before it happens. Then there are the suburban transplants, the college or just graduated from collage kids, and those who have lived in the city for a decade but are still clueless on subway etiquette while still acting like a tourist. 

   Usually I don't laugh when I'm on the subway but I do get a good chuckle when that group I just described refuses to look up from their phone, misses their stop, trips over someone, or gets shoved further into the car by a transit cop or another passenger because they thought it was a good idea to take one step into the subway car and stop. Those people don't belong in the subterranean world and they should stick to UBER and Lyft