The Q train was barely crowded--nobody really needed to stand.
The Q line uses the trains that have sideway seats at each window, flanked by a three-person, orange-and-yellow bench seats. Normally on this train I prefer the window seats so I can check out NY Harbor on my way over the Manhattan Bridge, but I was lucky enough to find a three-person bench with only one person on it. Curiously, he was in the middle seat. Normally, once someone occupies a seat on either side of you in those benches, the original person will slide over so there’s some elbow room.
Not so with this guy. He held his ground, wouldn’t budge, and wouldn’t spare an inch for the sake of a total stranger’s comfort. I tried to distract myself with reading but it wouldn’t take. So I spent the ride silently cursing his selfish bastardness.
Three weeks later I get onto a similarly crowded Q train, and I luck out again and nab a three-person bench for myself. Naturally, I take the end where I’m able to lean on the steel armrest--a choice that completely follows the unspoken rule of train-seating seniority. Only, it was one of the first hot days of summer, and the woman who’d just disembarked left the seat awkwardly hot. So I scooted over the hump into the middle seat and the train moves out.
Moments later a tall man comes out of nowhere and squeezes into the hot seat between me and the armrest.
Now, at this point I was in a quandary: Do I scoot over to the other end seat and make the tall, scary man sitting in the sideway seat move his pointy knees over? Do I straddle the seat-divider hump to give both me and the new guy more room, and suffer the uncomfortable divider?
I looked around to see if there were really no other seats this new guy could’ve taken--and aha! There were plenty of seats just screaming to be taken first. “He sat here just because he thought I’d scoot over. The nerve!” Then spite sank in, and from that point on I was determined not to move a muscle.
There I sat, waiting for the broad-shouldered bastard to leave so I could spread out again. I was vindicated finally when he got off the train one stop before me.
