You are known locally as the man who simply must have his 1-3/4 seater–those wonderfully cocooned off seats, occasionally locked in an upright position by killjoy conductors, that ensure that no fellow passenger is within 10 feet of you.
I see you, positioning yourself at the perfect spot on the platform each morning so that when the train doors open, you can bolt to your beloved 1-3/4 seater. I’ve even seen you lurking over a locked up seat until the conductor comes around, at which point you politely beg them to unlock it for you so you don’t have to sit with the other people and their imperceptible but no less infernal cooties.
When one looks up “O.Seat.D.” in one’s medical journals, you, sir, are pictured.
Perhaps you’re claustrophobic, or have social anxiety, or some other afflication that makes 45 minutes in tight quarters with fellow riders unbearable. I hear ya.
Problem is, I like those 1 3/4-seaters too. Not as much as you–occasionally I’ll even bypass an open one to sit with the chattering hoi polloi–but I do enjoy me a little Metro-North privacy now and then.
I saw you heading up the stairs at Hummerville this morning, and I said, I’m taking that mofo’s 1-3/4 seater. The train pulled up and you prepared your move, unaware of just how stiff the competition was going to be this morning. I entered from the next door down and made a beeline for the 1-3/4 seater. I followed your progress through the door that separated us. You were held up as a woman in front of you pondered the option of left versus that of right.
Still, it was going to be close. I jetted through the door just as you approached the 1 3/4 seater. I craftily thrust my foot in front of it to mark my territory. Adding insult to injury, I even looked at the seat and shrugged casually, as if to say, ‘yes, this one will do, but it doesn’t really matter to me where I sit.’
You, sir, were stunned. What amount of currency you’d cough up to claim that seat–your seat!–back. In all your years of boarding the train at Hummerville, I don’t think you’d ever had serious competition for your 1-3/4 seater before. You didn’t even have a Plan B.
Actually, you did. You testily made your way through the door, where a second 1 3/4 seater sits, only to find that one occupied. The anxiety mounted, I know it did. Perhaps you bolted off the train to wait for the next arrival and, God willing, an open 1-3/4 seater.
To be honest, I don’t know what you did, because I was already immersed in my newspaper and iPod, enjoying my personal heater, my personal window, my personal coat hook, in my ambulatory little pied a terre.
See you tomorrow, suckah.
Ha! Ha! Ha! How perfect was that!