Oddly enough, Moses was on the 5:46 to Mount Kisco last night. He left these behind…which, come to think of it, is a transgression of Commandment #4.

1. Thou shalt leave the seat next to thou unadorned with books and bags until the train starts moving, thus making it available for fellow riders. Once the train starts moving, it’s OK to put thou’s crap there.

2. Thou shalt not stare at thou’s mobile device and impede the progress of the group while walking to and from the train.

3. Thou shalt emphasis the “personal” in personal music devices by keeping thou’s iPod volume at a reasonable level. Thou may enjoy Insane Clown Posse. We, however, do not.

4. Thou shalt dispose of thou’s garbage, be it beer cans, coffee cups or newspapers. C’mon, folks, this isn’t Shea Stadium.

5. Thou shalt not engage in personal grooming activities, such as flossing and nose-hair trimming, on the train. Applying makeup is OK, I guess.

6. Thou shalt not place soaking wet umbrellas and raincoats in the overhead rack so that they drip on fellow riders’ heads.

7. Thou shalt not snore. We’ll affix a Breathe-Rite strip to thine nose if we have to. Don’t think we won’t.

8. Thou shalt use thy cellphone only for essential calls, and only then with thou’s inside voice. Thou shalt not pore through thine phone book looking for people to call to kill time. Uh, read or something. There are plenty of free papers out there.

9. Thou shalt have thy ticket ready for the conductor. Imagine thou is the conductor. How frustrated would thou be to have to wait for someone to fish their ticket or pass from their pocket? Thou knows the guy is coming.

10. Thou shalt not let thy leg, shoulder or elbow cross the invisible line in between seats. Unless, of course, thou is particularly large, in which case thou should drive.

[The Commuter’s Ten Commandments originally ran in June.]

[photos: Jesuswalk.com, Ithinked.com, blog61.fc.2.com, geocities.com, alibaba.com]

Dear Sir Snores-a-lot, 

You’re a Caucasian male, probably in your mid to late 30’s and have some kind of half-spiked blonde hair. You board the train at Fairfield. You’re usually on the 7:08 or the 7:24 and sit towards the rear of the train.

For the past two days, I’ve had the VERY unpleasant experience of sitting in the same car as you. Why, you ask? Because you snort and snore very loudly as you drool onto your tie. On Tuesday, you were passed out leaning against a window and had everyone in the car irritated.

I was hoping that this would be a one-time thing, but I was wrong. Yesterday morning, you snagged a seat in one of the five-seaters, once again snorting, snoring and drooling.  Since the 7:24 was packed, you irritated even more people than on the previous day. 

I’m not sure if you’ve got a new baby at home that is keeping you up all night or if you’re out partying until 3 am every morning, but you make an already unpleasant experience even worse. Whatever the problem is, maybe you should try sleeping at night.  Not like anyone cares if you sleep on the train (although the guy next to you on Tuesday looked pretty pissed that your head kept bobbing and landing on his shoulder), but we could definitely do without the snorting and snoring. (Since the drooling is only a visual thing, I guess we can deal with that — although I’d prefer not to see that either.) 

Thank God I saw you walking onto the platform this morning so I had an opportunity to head in the opposite direction. It was actually a pretty nice ride in silence after listening to you for the past two days. 

Has anyone been appointed the enforcer of Commandment #7 on the New Haven line?? If not, I suppose I’ll volunteer. Where can I buy a family-sized pack of Breathe-Rite strips?  Not only will I properly affix one to the bridge of your nose, Sir Snores-a-lot, I plan on using them like butterfly bandages to close your mouth, as that seems to be the primary source of the offensive sounds.  

–CTRider