Planet Earth: Seat Hunting

When Lil Bow Wow said he loved ghetto girls, I somehow don’t think he was talking about me and my current living situation, however I have had a dead moth on my stairs since November and it has not been removed. I have justified this because they are not technically my stairs, as they lead to the boys’ rooms above me and I never use those stairs. Secondly, this is not a little white fellow that is more dust and shadows than insect, nay nay, this moth could have fought Godzilla…and won. As a hater but respecter of all things creepy-crawly, I can’t bring myself to be handsy with it. So instead I am considering taking up time-elapsed photography and chronicling its death and decay. 

     Now, I am not one to complain when things change (not) but today was the exact opposite of my Friday experience on the streets of Reading. Today, at approximately 6:30am, the streets were a blurring mass of humans darting this way and that. I was so shocked by how many people were walking about, that I kept checking my watch thinking I was an hour late or there was a daylight savings time I missed. The people of Reading need to get their lives together and decide what time they will be on my streets because I don’t think my poor over-imaginative self can take all these extremes.

     Now to end my day, I caught the 5:45 train home and just managed to squeeze onto the train before the doors were sealed for takeoff. Everyday this is my life; hunting for a seat as if I am a starving lion taking down a frail gazelle on the African plains. Trains are always packed with people, and there is no “capacity” so when all the seats are filled, people just stand for hours until they reach their stop. I refuse to stand. I stood once, and I swore I would never do it again. Standing on a train is much like standing on a rollercoaster…and not being belted in. Plus, you have to continually shift your weight so you don’t fall over, making you unusually tired after your journey. There is nothing to hold on to, unless you want your hand rubbing against the head of a person sitting down. The funny thing is, is that when you become a “sitter” you immediately take on a snobbish attitude and contempt for those standing. When I stood, I looked everywhere for a place to put my hands and was always bumping into “sitters.” They would look up at me disgusted and roll their eyes as if I was an untouchable, grabbing onto their upper-classness. Even with this experience, I find it hard not to become a “sitter” myself, and shrink back when a stander grazes my ear/neck/air space with their filthy mitts. I try to think of how fortunate I am for sitting and how sad and lost they are to stand, so as to allow for the occasional graze, but it still doesn’t stop my immediate reaction upon contact. Today was a particularly hard day for hunting looking for seats, as I was one of the last to board and some people give up looking and just crowd the door entrances. I shove past these weaklings, looking for the kill. I spotted it. About 20 feet away, a rich-looking older lady sitting in the aisle seat, hoarding her unoccupied window seat. I bolted, as I can already see another competitor racing from the opposite direction toward the seat. I got there just in time to turn my back fully to his approach, blocking him from asking the lady to move. She glanced up over her glasses at me and sneers, “this seat is reserved, can’t you see the ticket?” Now let me explain this aspect of seat-hunting. Some bubsies call ahead to reserve seats, however they can do this months, if not decades before their travel and inevitably something comes up and their seat remains empty. All that is left is their ghost of a reservation, known as the “Reservation ticket” which sits in a slot on the back of the seat which they were saving. People know this about the trains and always say, “why yes darling you can sit here but it is reserved,” to which I reply, “well yes, if the person should happen upon their seat, I will move immediately.” So for her to reply in such a manner, I was immediately filled with rage which probably would have allowed me to take down a medium-sized gazelle if I were really a lion. I reached across her seat, grabbed the ticket, and as I am scrunching it up, say, “I will take my chances.” I have never seen an older lady with that many leather bags on her lap, stand up and allow someone by them as fast as what I saw today. 

I promise you, I will never stand on a train again, no matter what it takes.