How to Act When Riding the Subway

Image via Complex Original

It doesn't matter where you are, what city you're in: No one wants to be on the subway. We don't want to pull our feet from the sticky floors and push past the hordes of others. But we have to. We're compelled to move from one place to another, by work and other bullshit. Still, it doesn't need to be that terrible. There are other ways.

Let's all just act like humans, and we'll be there soon.

Disperse

There is nothing worse than looking past fifty sardined riders into an oasis of subway space. Everyone, pretend you are gas molecules, distributing easily across the space allowed. If gases can do it, so can we.

Wear Deodorant

Even if you are coming home after a long day at the office, there is no excuse to smell. If you're a parent, make sure your children don't smell. If you're a child, make sure your parents don't smell. If you're a husband, make sure your wife doesn't smell. And so on.

A caveat: Accept that homeless people will smell, and that the smell might be made stronger by the closed confines of the subway car. Rule of thumb: If you have a home, there is no excuse for smelling.

Take Off Your Bag

Fucking bags, always keeping doors from shutting, or hitting women and children in the face. Protect those that would be the first loaded into the lifeboats. Remove your bulging backpack. Place it on the floor between your legs. It's not hard.

Hold the Door

Different schools of thought on this one. The MTA, for instance, is against it. However, it seems like common human decency to hold the door for someone running with all she has to make the particular train you've already posted up on. Anyway, you're already standing by the door. And that person is moving as if getting on this train will change her life.

Change a life. Hold the door.

Don't Play Music

Time to fight the future: It is not impressive, how shitty the speakers on your smart phone sound, or how much you want to DJ the fifth car on the Manhattan-bound Q train. It's just sad, really.

Also, if all the other travelers can hear what's coming through your ear buds or boxy Beats™ by Dr. Dre™ just as well as you can, please fuck off.

Hustle Hard or Not at All

Nothing worse than a subway hustler going through the motions. If you've sung that tune one too many times, give your voice a rest. Or find a new standard and make it yours. If you're a homeless person who people can't understand, make a sign or shut up. If you're selling candy, you don't need to explain why. We all know what time it is.

Saw a subway routine the other day that revolved around a kid twirling his hat and then flipping it onto his head—you can wear a hat, congratulations.

Don't Beat Your Kids

Everyone hates you when you hit your kids on the subway. There will be no jokes about this. Sorry. Just—don't hit your kids on the subway.

Don't Make Small Talk

"Excuse me. I'm on this train to get from my monotonous job to my squalid home life. Please don't talk to me. Please don't ever talk to me."

Know Where You're Going

Don't get everything twisted: You need not have the subway map uploaded into your brain, Matrix style. But have a vague idea of where you're going. Some notion.

Which borough are you traveling to? Know uptown from downtown. Local train or express: which is the right fit for you?

Odds are you're holstered up with at least two devices that can give you directions to your destination. Slowly breathe in the future, grip your iPhone tight, and figure out where the fuck to go.

Don't Spill Your Drink

We all hate riding feet up, bags on laps. Just drink your drink or grip the cup tight. Anyone who thinks that the subway floor is an appropriate place to set their drink needs to have their head examined by the third rail.