about metro etiquette

1) when boys are nice, it's nice -- a few days ago, a young gentleman on my train let the older woman who got on have his seat.  These sort of small actions make me believe that chivalry is not dead.  They give me a little glimmer of hope when most days there are only teenage boys who wear their pants too low and try to do flips or something on the pole in the metro car and listen to music too loudly through head phones that are around their necks (which is not your head, nor where your ears are) and sprawl out over like three seats when meanwhile there are little old grandma's (or twenty-something ladies who have difficulty balancing in heels...) forced to cling for dear life as the train jerks back and forth like a mechanical bull at a Texas rodeo.  not nice, boys. not nice.

2) when you have a cold, it's bad -- As the season gets colder my nose is getting progressively stuffier.  Meaning I'm becoming something gross and deplorable: a mouth breather. A few days ago, as a crowded metro car  left us packed on top of each other like sardines, I found myself (without anything I could do to change the situation, except hold my breath or suffocate maybe) breathing down the back of some stranger's neck.  Seriously. Like I was one of those gross pug dogs only their owners think are cute that you always see gasping for air.  Like I was reenacting a scene straight out of a horror movie.  Like Brainy breathing behind Helga then getting punched in the face-style.  You get the picture.

3) when there are seeing-eye dogs, it's difficult -- Many times when I've gotten on a train to leave work there has been the same kind blind man and his seeing-eye dog.  And it's hard, because when I see a dog, I want to pet it. It's an automatic, bodily reaction. I want to snuggle with it and go "dawww wooook at you, you're a dog! you're such a wittle cutie! (random dog noises)".  But I think that this is not appropriate with seeing-eye dogs. Or so I'm told.  So then this inner-dialogue goes off like "OH a dog! look at HIM! he is soo cute! I'm gonna pet him. Oh wait, I can't. He's a seeing-eye dog and he's working and you can't pet seeing-eye dogs when they are working...but his owner will never see me do it! No wait, that's horrible, Emily. you're actually a bad person....."  and so it's always a morally difficult dilemma.