Okay, man, just back up. Back up!
How many times do you think that in the line at the grocery store or the coffee shop or the post office or the concert venue or church for communion or the Girl Scout cookie table outside Walmart, or in the doctor's office waiting room, or in the doctor's office patient room with your pants around your ankles? There is something inside us -- some sort of hypersensitive internal security system -- that goes absolutely haywire when we feel someone's presence creep in and consume that one extra inch of personal space we mentally apportioned to our physical person. And if you're like me, there's no rebounding or refocusing that can occur until that inch has been reclaimed and reestablished.
Everyone has a different "bubble" size -- some several inches off their epidermis, some several feet -- but 99% of us can agree that there's a delicate orb of airy cushion encapsulating our mortal being that should stay observed and respected by all strangers, if not all people. And, man, that 1% of humanity who somehow doesn't get it drives us up a wall of frenzy.
Ever been herded into that metal-barred labyrinth of a winding queue that at some unforeseen point in the distance leads to an amusement park ride, only to constantly feel the random guy who's preoccupied with his phone behind you standing within a couple inches of your soul with each step forward? Or, worse, waiting in that same line and getting bumped into by the two enraptured teenage coeds who split from their youth group trip so that they can suck face conveniently directly in front of you at every two-foot advancement through the line? It's all a bit much. The pressure applied to your comfort zone is enormous, even overbearing. At that point, I just want to reach the line's end, not for the ride but for the psychological rest.
But that personal space-infringing experience pales in comparison to that of the dentist office, where your personal space suffers a most vicious beating. There are few non-child-birthing events where your personal space issues are confronted headlong like laying back in a chair with your mouth helplessly agape as eyes, fingers, and tools peer into it and explore the oral crevices you didn't know existed. It also doesn't help when the hygienist lording over your pried mouth is a large, unattractive woman who decides to rest her behemoth mammaries on your cheek and shoulder -- a comically predictable, utterly unerotic nuance that seems to happen to me with every visit to every dentist office I've had the displeasure of visiting. Yep, that epitomizes personal space violation.
Unluckily, the only thing worse than a personal space violation is confronting the personal space violator, as nothing good ever comes from that. There simply isn't an easy way to ask a stranger, "Do you mind stepping back a bit? You're in my bubble," without sounding sort of arrogant and overly dramatic.
...Eh, screw it -- back up and give me room. Please. No, really! I can't breathe! I can't think! Aaahhhhhh!
Oh, hey, great. Cheers.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Public Transportation
If you are in, or have ever been in, a big city and have used public transportation, I'm willing to bet you've had that head-slapping epiphanous moment where you're sitting or standing within that confined space of selected mode of transit asking yourself, "What am I doing here? Why did I buy that ticket? Taking this bus/train/subway sounded like a good idea at the time..." And then cue the self-loathing. It's inevitable.
No one can blame you for such a reaction -- or your urge to buy the ticket in the first place. The convenience of public transportation always supersedes the discomfort, lack of safety, awkwardness, and predictable freak show bound and waiting within that windowed cage in motion.
That is, until you're also within it.
When you're waiting to get on public transportation, your prioritized focus is getting to work or buying groceries or finding the right airport stop. But once you're actually on public transportation, that focus is immediately shifted to the same as every fellow rider's: don't die. Simply staying alive and not getting stabbed are essentially the primary objectives of everyone on public transportation, especially in large cities. All other concerns instantly diminish into laughable obscurity.
Using public transportation is all about obeying unwritten rules while ironically never chastising anyone for disobeying them. For example, you're totally free to look at and observe anything you want, as long as you refrain from making eye contact with any strangers -- especially the one uneasily rocking back and forth and mumbling to no one in particular. But if you happen to glance over to find someone staring at you, reciprocating the gesture is not recommended, much less making a remark or asking the person to stop. Unless of course you enjoy verbal/switchblade altercations.
I guess an unadvertised benefit of taking public transportation is its entertainment at no additional cost. Virtually all forms of public transportation, primarily rail, provide a talent show stage for the untalented. An un-talent show, if you will. You have people playing (well, haphazardly blowing) the harmonica; singers singing aloud either unintentionally due to their headphone volume or intentionally and simply without care; drunk monologue deliverers; amateur photographers attempting to snap "artistic" upskirt or cleavage shots of strangers with their iPhone; daring displays of coital exhibitionism; and, oh, many, many more. Really whatever your heart desires -- and your five senses don't.
Fortunately for you, there are seats to relax in. Unfortunately for you, those seats haven't been cleaned since their installation. To make matters worse, a large percentage of seats found on buses and trains are upholstered, which undoubtedly sounded perfectly sensible in their inception. What their creators failed to account for, however, were the generations between their cleanings. Look at that Cosby-sweater upholstery and tell me how much antibacterial confidence a person can place in its ability to repel quintillions of germs and filth from a nonstop influx of random bottoms and crotches.
That's right, bottoms and crotches. And I can't think of any better way to close a look at public transportation than that.
Bottoms. And crotches.
No one can blame you for such a reaction -- or your urge to buy the ticket in the first place. The convenience of public transportation always supersedes the discomfort, lack of safety, awkwardness, and predictable freak show bound and waiting within that windowed cage in motion.
That is, until you're also within it.
When you're waiting to get on public transportation, your prioritized focus is getting to work or buying groceries or finding the right airport stop. But once you're actually on public transportation, that focus is immediately shifted to the same as every fellow rider's: don't die. Simply staying alive and not getting stabbed are essentially the primary objectives of everyone on public transportation, especially in large cities. All other concerns instantly diminish into laughable obscurity.
Using public transportation is all about obeying unwritten rules while ironically never chastising anyone for disobeying them. For example, you're totally free to look at and observe anything you want, as long as you refrain from making eye contact with any strangers -- especially the one uneasily rocking back and forth and mumbling to no one in particular. But if you happen to glance over to find someone staring at you, reciprocating the gesture is not recommended, much less making a remark or asking the person to stop. Unless of course you enjoy verbal/switchblade altercations.
I guess an unadvertised benefit of taking public transportation is its entertainment at no additional cost. Virtually all forms of public transportation, primarily rail, provide a talent show stage for the untalented. An un-talent show, if you will. You have people playing (well, haphazardly blowing) the harmonica; singers singing aloud either unintentionally due to their headphone volume or intentionally and simply without care; drunk monologue deliverers; amateur photographers attempting to snap "artistic" upskirt or cleavage shots of strangers with their iPhone; daring displays of coital exhibitionism; and, oh, many, many more. Really whatever your heart desires -- and your five senses don't.
Fortunately for you, there are seats to relax in. Unfortunately for you, those seats haven't been cleaned since their installation. To make matters worse, a large percentage of seats found on buses and trains are upholstered, which undoubtedly sounded perfectly sensible in their inception. What their creators failed to account for, however, were the generations between their cleanings. Look at that Cosby-sweater upholstery and tell me how much antibacterial confidence a person can place in its ability to repel quintillions of germs and filth from a nonstop influx of random bottoms and crotches.
That's right, bottoms and crotches. And I can't think of any better way to close a look at public transportation than that.
Bottoms. And crotches.
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