NTKOG #33: The kind of girl who gets all Captain Planet on a litterbug’s ass — handing him a do-gooder lecture with a heaping side of public shaming before his dang Twizzler wrapper can even finish fluttering to the ground.
I am: conscient–ish. I mean, I’m probably the only person I know who <i>always</i> throws away empty cups/wrappers in the cinema, instead of leaving them for the usher. But sometimes if a receipt flies out of my wallet and into the wild blue yonder, I won’t chase it.
I am not: vocal or sanctimonious about other people being non-litterers. Especially as I seem to be taking environmentalism pass-fail?
The Scene: The T — the T! I live on the T! — on the way to work on Friday. I sneak in the car a bit too late and am crowded in a corner while the car continues to fill. A young man (late 20s?) stands close in front of me, rocking a double-breasted boxy Men’s Wearhouse number like he thinks it’s Armani, holding a coffee and carrying three newspapers underarm.
I turn back to my book (Fight Club; liked but didn’t love) and pay him no heed until — FWAP! Fwap! The man, while unfolding his newspaper, flips it right into my eyes, smudging newsprint on my nose.
“Uh, excuse me, but your paper is kind of hitting my face,” I tell him, and he apologizes.
Only moments later — Fwap! Fwap! The man has unfolded all three newspapers to the business section, nearly papercutting my eyeballs in the process. THREE NEWSPAPERS! Where are you going, buzzardface? Cambridge by way of friggin’ Tulsa?! He has even put his now-empty coffee cup down at his feet to enable the maneuver.
One stop later, I feel a breeze against my face as the jerkwad powerwalks halfway down the car to slide into a single-seater, moments ahead of an elderly woman. On the ground in front of me, where he had been standing, are the three molted plastic bags from the papers and his damn coffee cup, now on its side and oozing out a few milky-white drops. A young woman gets on the train and grimaces as she picks her way around the debris, before settling against the wall next to me.
I am — I am absolutely bally INCENSED. Before I can even think what I’m doing, I snatch up the plastic bags and sticky cup and storm over to the douche canoe, and flash him my biggest, most venomous grin:
“Excuse me, sir! You must have accidentally dropped these! I know you didn’t mean to leave them on the floor where you were standing, because that would be a terrible thing to do.”
He sputtered and accepted his garbage, and I made my way back to my spot, expecting a hero’s welcome from the rest of the commuters who had been standing ankle-deep in his filth. But — nothing. Nobody smiled at me. Then, when I looked around for validation, people turned uncomfortably away, avoiding eye contact.
Finally I locked eyes with the girl who had had such difficulty picking through his trash, and flashed her a look like: “Dude, some people should be shipped off to languish to death on a deserted friggin’ island, amiright?” and she looked back at me like, “Totally. And don’t forget your sunscreen before you leave.” And I was in a snit until the whole train exited at Government Center and I glanced at his seat to see the three bags and the coffee cup, which had been joined by a crumpled sheet of advertisements, and I knew that — snotty girl or not — in this small quest I was on the side of the righteous.
The Verdict: Turns out when I first moved to Boston, I missed the welcome wagon memo: no matter what terrible things people do on the subway, you can’t call them on it. Every if every other person on that train car is thinking poisonous thoughts about the jerk, the second you cross that imaginary boundary and publically question their behavior, all of a sudden you’re the car villain. Sadly, I guess this NTKOG stays in the realm of passive-aggressive pantomime and wishful thinking.
Although, a coda to the story: on the way to work this morning, a group of insolent high-schoolers (god I’m old) were shouting and jostling each other all the way to Park Street. When they finally exited, they left several soda cans and a PopTart wrapper.
“Geez,” the girl next to me turned and said. “Someone should really tell them they can’t get away with that!” And I smiled and nodded, but thought only to myself, ha, not in this city, sister. Go ahead. Just try it.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
oh man, that sucks! in dc we usually give the approval-eye to those souls brave enough to confront the metro rider we’re all annoyed by…
You guys get APPROVAL EYES?! Jealous jealous jealous. I guess it’s some of that good ol’ southern hospitality.
This just goes to prove that the Subway rules are different to normal life rules. We need to get the Subway added into the Geneva Convention or something!
hahahaha. I KNOW you live in Boston, but for some reason when I read your blog I’m always picturing this all happening in LONDON, ENGLAND. I have no idea why.
Hmmm. How IS Boston? I almost went there once on a trip from Montreal down to NYC. But then didn’t. Good story, Blondie.
I’m British, but only visit London occasionally (and have never been to Boston, Mass either). I’m not saying this applies to every story (although the K-train ones could apply to any city with a subway, tramway, or other light rail network, and a few with extensive heavy rail nets as well), but this one in particular is just so London it’s not true, apart from TKOG’s part which never happens in London either!
You’re so right. Apparently, it’s not cool to be the littering, disturbing jerk, but it’s even less cool to call the jerk out for it. I don’t get it. I think what you did was great.
I love the “at least he wasn’t wearing earbuds” tag. I’m actuallu surprised he didn’t take his trash with him after you called him out on it. If I remember correctly, there ARE trash cans at the T stops.
I’m with Alice- I am all OVER the co-eye-approval. It’s DC code.
Dude, I’ll be psyched to see people actually being nice when I visit DC in a few weeks. I might be inspired to write a DC-based public transport manifesto and guerrilla post it all over train cars!
The T makes the NY Subway sound like a etiquette school. Good luck with continuing to survive on that hellish mode of transportation.
I know how you feel! But my general complaint is about people who either listen to music not using their ear phones, or have it on way too loud and obnoxiously don’t realize that they are offending other pleople. Bleh!
Oh, amen, girl! I already had an awkward confrontation about that, and since then have been experimenting with trying to get them to turn their music down. Actually, I think I’ll post an update today!
Hey good for you! I have always wanted to stand up to someone like you did. However, I usually don’t say anything but still feel like everyone expects me to do something.. so I clean up after the litterer. I don’t think I gain as much respect as the person who confronts the litterer… but its something!!
I actually think cleaning up after the litterer is the way to go. After the high school punks got off, I picked up their trash and threw it away at the T stop, and a random person actually stopped me and told me that was nice.
I mean, it felt better to confront the dang litterer and I hoped he’d change his action, but I think people feel too affronted to change their behavior when you talk to them on the T. Plus, when I was thinking about it, I asked myself which was more important: proving my point to the jerkface, or making sure there’s one less thing for the cleaning service to take care of? I mean, honestly. It’s not like these trains are cleaned by robots!
ARGH now I’m angry at the jerkface all over again!!!
The only thing worse than the park street school crew is the Brighton High crew. Oh. My. God. One of my townie regulars is a custodian there. He says the rival girl gangs throw used tampons at the ceiling in the bathroom, in hopes that they will fall onto oncoming girls. He mentioned that he thought they were bats one day.
At least that shit isn’t on the T, right?
omg. omg. omg.
That is the worst thing I’ve ever heard.
Man, when I was in high school my idea of rebellious was, like, copying lines of poetry in pencil on the bathroom stall.
@Rebel Mel EWWWWWW That is the worst thing I have EVER heard!
My idea of rebellious in high school was saying “I don’t know” when the teacher asked me a question that I well, /didn’t know/ the answer to.
Hah. I personally barely went to high school. I figured that I wasn’t interested in most of my classes, so instead of being disruptive (by reading books that weren’t part of the syllabus. I seriously got in trouble for that, multiple times!) I opted to create my own adventures. Although, I never missed Creative Writing, Art, Photography, Chemistry, or any other science class, for that matter.