T Party

It may run later now, but customer courtesy on the MBTA? WTF?

 
 

By Dan Forward

was reading Nietzsche recently. (Don’t worry, I’m just kidding. I don’t read. It’s just for the sake of the intro.) Nietzsche worried about how the strong, deserving people of the world had been tricked by the “sick” people into giving up their natural rights and being made to follow fabrications like “morality.” Well, Nietzsche got me thinking. How can we strong, deserving people, we real Bostonians, take back what’s ours? Where do we even start to regain our inheritance? Getting seats on the T seems a suitable first goal. Here are my tips for exerting your natural right to sit down, even on your one-stop trip from BU Central to BU West.

Pretend you’ve just run the Boston Marathon and that you need to rest. Assemble your disguise by playing Halo with three other guys in a room with no windows in it for a few hours to get a healthy sweat going, wrapping yourself in a tinfoil cape, and making yourself bleed from the nipples. (The choice of method for the last one is entirely in your hands. Or pliers.) Think this only works on Marathon Monday? Think again. Tell people you ran in future memory of your great-great-great grandson who is going to die in the Second Great Martian Conflict from friendly laser fire, so even though it’s been five months since the last race began, you’ve actually finished in quite good time. Touching, and impossible to verify.

Get really old. It’s not overly likely that anyone will voluntarily offer you a seat, but being of a certain age evidently grants you the right to yell at others indiscriminately and without fear of reprisal. Try to pick a sitter that everyone else already hates anyway, like one of those jokers who wears sunglasses even when the train is below ground, and you’ll have the added support of a lot of passive-aggressive glares. Phrases like “Where’d you learn your manners, Sonny Jim?” and “I am Flemeth, Witch of the Wilds! This curse of age I give unto you and take your soul withal, if this seat you do not render up to me” are old standbys that still carry a lot of weight with the youth of today.

Stand beside someone sitting next to someone else who plays his music really loudly, preferably one of those people who listens to tracks that sound like they’re off of Now! That’s What I Call Terrible House Music! Volume 34. Your target won’t be able to endure this for long, and will move, which is when you slip into the now-empty seat. But you don’t want to listen to DJ InconZiderate next to you, so what to do? Well, remember that chloroform I told you to keep on your person at all times? Of course you don’t, because for legal reasons I can’t actually suggest such a thing. Anyway, take your chloroform out and put your seatmate to sleep for a little while. Then use your wire cutters to snip snip! his headphones in half for an enjoyable rest of your trip.

Be extremely abrasive yourself. Sure, it’s fine to take advantage of someone else’s rudeness, but what if everyone on that subway is a reasonable person? What are you going to do then?! Being intolerable can take many forms. Being really smelly is a classic that can clear an entire car, but this presents problems for after you disembark unless you can localize the smell. Being able to sprout spikes from your skin like that mutant in X-Men 3 is great, but unfortunately one of you reading this actually is that mutant. (Hey, Steve.) One idea that has gotten a lot of positive responses is simulating a lot of the dirtier sex acts non-stop (e.g., the Blue Kangaroo, the Reverse Kool-Aid Man), very close to a seated passenger. However, don’t be constrained by this partial list. Find that terrible action which you really enjoy doing or you’ll never stick with it.

Don’t ask me why this next one works, but it does. Go up to anyone and start talking about your column on MySecretBoston and how some people think it’s easy to write, and that yes, true, it’s very easy, but only because you’re so talented, and there’s this great one about how stupid parties are that’s coming out next week that you need to check out. Sometimes you might get the response, “That just sounds like a blog,” but if you explain that, “No, it’s as legitimate as any article in the Globe or The New Yorker,” miraculously the next stop is always where that person has to get off the train. I can’t explain this one, so just be thankful for small miracles.

Take the T on a rainy day. Or a snowy day. Or a day on which it has precipitated sometime in the previous six months. Search for the one seat with the big puddle from the leak in the roof. Every train has one, but no one ever sits there! Why? They forget their wet suits, of course. Capitalize on the general unpreparedness of commuters these days by plopping your rubber-protected behind down on that cozy perch that pretty much has your name on it. Is the water cold? Leading scuba-diving experts will tell you to urinate in your suit to keep that body temperature up. At least, I’m telling you that, and becoming a leading scuba-diving expert is totally on my bucket list.

Be really dangerous. A lot of guides with purposes similar to this one will tell you to just look like you could flip out at any second on someone, but these tips aren’t about half measures. You’re going to need to employ one or several of the moves you’ve learned from repeated viewings of Jet Li’s kung fu masterpiece, Fist of Legend to quickly dismantle the nearest person. Accomplish this and remove the uncertainly associated with those other methods such as wimpy verbal threats and body language that merely suggests the possibility of hostility. Pick the seat of your choice, perhaps even the train driver’s. It’s extra cushion-y.

Sit on someone’s lap. If anyone objects, simply remind him or her that when considering the unfathomable expanse of geological time, the concept of personal space becomes a very recent idea, and one possessed exclusively by a small subset of living organisms. Do rocks need personal space? Do bacteria need personal space? How about Fletcher, the heavy breather at your office? I suspect that rather than engage in debate with you, the person will move away in frustration. And there you go, a warm place to sit, and your first human contact in months!

Now go forth, my students, and take what is yours by right. The weak shall again serve the strong, and all with the world will be as it should be. Just don’t pull any of this crap on me. I’ve seen Fist of Legend like 400 times, and I will not hesitate to put you down.