Commuting in New York City is worse than any other city in the United States. I don't give a shit about the D.C. Beltway or the 405 in Los Angeles or "The Circle" in Chicago. Doesn't matter. At least you are sitting in your goddamn cars with your goddamn coffee listening to the goddamn radio. Do you even know what I would be willing to give up for the opportunity to drive into Manhattan every day? A lung. Seriously. Because if I knew at 21 years old what I know now, I would have started doing heroin to ensure that I never ever have a job that requires a commute in Manhattan. If that statement right there isn't a testament to the absolute horribleness of the Big Apple commute, then I don't know what is.
What makes matters worse is people in this city are just awful. Most of them are selfish inconsiderate dummies who see nothing wrong with eating buffalo wings and a jar of vinegar peppers during rush hour. They also see nothing wrong with whipping out a nail clipper or a cell phone and gabbing away with their stupid kids for 90 minutes.
But I say it’s time that we join together and stop all this madness. I propose that, instead of suffering in silence, the least we can do is implement a set of rules and correlating fines that are actually enforced by the public. And the main purpose of these rules is to make sure everyone fulfills the basic qualifications for acting like a mediocre to satisfactory human being on a daily basis, nothing more. I honestly don’t think that is too much to ask.
To encourage participation and obedience from the general population, all of the money collected by these fines will be entered into a monthly lottery. All persons who buy a monthly train pass - commuter and subway alike - are eligible to win the lump sum prize during a random drawing of ticket numbers. Who doesn't like passive-aggressive gambling? Hitler, that's who. So don't be like Hitler. Join your fellow man and woman commuter and fight the good fight.
As Walter Sobcheck once said, "This isn't Vietnam, Smokey, there are rules." And you know what? He was goddamn right.
THE RULES OF COMMUTING - PART I
RULE #1 - Drunk Cars After 11PM
I have done my fair share of drinking and commuting. One time I woke up on a train that was parked in THE TRAIN YARD. I was covered with newspapers. Snow was literally blowing in through the open doors. Also, a police officer was yelling at me, as if I had snuck onto the train and covered myself in newspapers because, you see, he thought I was a hobo. Surprised he couldn't tell the difference between a hobo jacket and one from Kohl's. So yeah, that was kind of a low point in my life. But to the cop's point, drunks and trains are never a good combo.
And this is why I'm proposing the addition of a "Drunk Car" - which would be made exclusive for people who are too bombed to mix with regular passengers, and want to yell and sing and fight and barf and fall asleep in the aisles. Also, instead of wasting taxpayer’s money on transit cops to guard the drunk car, there will just be wrestling mats and rubber walls stapled all over walls and floor so that (hopefully) no one dies. Because it's just not fair for a hardworking Korean family who just put in twenty-two hours at their grocery to have to sit next to some stupid rich dickhead wearing a YOLO t-shirt and bitching about the Jeep Grand Cherokee he got for free from his rich and neglectful dad because it doesn't have leather seats.
Penalty: $500 fine, Two weeks in jail, and/or forced to wear a sandwich board that says “I cannot control my behavior when I drink because I am a self-centered piece of shit with the tolerance of an eleven year old”
RULE #2 - Food Restrictions
If it's wet or hot or a liquid or has liquid on top of it but is not in a cup, then no. If it has vinegar or sauce that smells like anything other than delicious baking bread, then no. You eat it before or after you ride the train. I don’t care if you chose to live in Poughkeepsie and your commute is 700 hours long--too bad, that’s your fucking problem, pal, not mine. No one wants to smell General Tso's chicken and/or watch you eat it and spill most of it on your khakis and grunt like you’re fucking an ottoman. And for those of you that eat cereal on the train, you should be ashamed of yourself. Might as well make everyone watch you eat a bowl of dog food soaked in dishwater.
Penalty: $500 fine, one glass of scalding hot oatmeal and/or coffee dumped down your pants
RULE #3 - Control Your Music Volume
If your music is so loud that I can hear it even though you are wearing headphones, then please, for your sake and the sake of the public, lower the fucking volume. What are you even listening to? Fun.? Ugh, grow up. You are going to be deaf soon. And when you're deaf, shit is going to suck for you. You will have to read subtitles on the TV and learn sign language and that shit is hard to learn, especially for someone dumb enough to make themselves deaf because they want to listen to Flo Rida at a really, really high volume.
Also, this rule is a favor for you weirdo businessmen who are listening to teen pop. Stop. You’re creeping everyone out over here.
Penalty: $250 fine, pistol shot off next to your ear, banned for life from Beats by Dre.
RULE #4 - Suitcases Belong on the Rack
USE THE FUCKING LUGGAGE RACKS. They aren't only there for Richie Wall Street over here to use as a hangar for his $5,000 Armani suit jacket that he just spent ten minutes elaborately folding like it’s the goddamn Shroud of Turin. If you bring suitcases on the train and I bang my knees against them, then by Rules of Commuting #4, I have every right to throw the suitcase out of the door at the next stop. That's part of the new penalty for being so goddamn consumed with your iPhone that you forget that this planet is also populated by other people who have shit to do too. Also, if you roll your eyes when I ask to sit in the aisle seat that your stupid backpack is occupying, I am going to throw this scalding coffee into your stupid face.
Penalty: $250 fine, bags thrown off moving train, must wear a clown suit for three weeks to and from your office along with sandwich board that says, “I am unaware of other people on this planet and choose to be a mindless dickhead when it comes to my personal property getting in the way of these so-called other people.”
RULE # 5 - Family Car Implementation
I cringe when a flock of forty children come sprinting onto the train and begin to immediately scream and yell and ask their parents about every-fucking-thing they see outside the window. Yes those are trees. Yes those are buildings. Yes that is a bum pissing into a Folger's can. But I am also sympathetic to (most of) these parent’s situations. Most of them look like they would rather be sticking cigarettes into their eyeballs than sitting on a train full of people who hate them. So, the rule is, before 10am and between 5p-8p, there will be a designated Family Car. Open to all, but specifically for kids to cry and babble and pee their pants. To save money, they could just power wash the Drunk Car from the night before – it’s already padded for the kids, so win-win.
Penalty: $300 fine for each child; child will then be forced to watch
Bad Santa
RULE #6 - No Grooming
There is not one possible scenario where I could sympathize with someone clipping their fingernails or toenails on a commuter train. None. Even if your house burned down that morning, and you didn’t have time to groom before all of your Earthly possessions were incinerated, I would still hate you. It is literally one of the most repulsive sounds to hear on the planet. I’d rather hear someone vomiting blood into a steel drum than hear that mechanical ‘click’ sound at 7AM. And then the nails fly everywhere, which is just horrible to think about. Who the fuck knows where those nails have been digging? These people should be thrown in prison.
This rule also applies to makeup, combing your hair, and flossing(!). The train is not your bathroom. It is a fucking train. Leave yourself ample time in the morning to put on makeup and continue looking like a Peruvian hooker.
Penalty: 1 month in jail, $1,500 fine, magic marker replaces your makeup for two weeks along with magic marker mustache daily application
RULE #7 - Seat Restrictions due to Weight
Look, this may be a sensitive subject for some, but I really don’t care. If you weight 900 lbs than you should act like you weight 900 lbs. No one should have to suffer because you French kiss tubs of Turkey Hill Butter Pecan every night. And I'm not even talking about the people who are just portly or chunky or somewhat overweight - I am talking about the tanks that bust into subway cars and demand an entire row of seats so they can rest their bathtub-sized ass. No one should be awarded extra room because they just polished off a Costco bag of Doritos. You will stand and you will like it.
Penalty – $300 fine for each additional seat you absorb, one month on a Vegan diet
RULE #8 - No Shirt, No Shoes, No Ride
Clothes and shoes stay on. Under no circumstances should you have your shoes off in the presence of other people unless you are visiting Tokyo and it’s customary and if you don’t take them off they will chop off your head with a Katana. Taking off your shoes around strangers after sweating into your socks all day is equal to farting in someone’s face. And wearing a tank top that allows your fat hairy disgusting nipple to peak out of the side is grounds for capital punishment.
Penalty: $500 fine, four weeks of trading clothes with homeless people
RULE #9 - No Extended Cell Phone Use
People who talk on their cell phone for long periods of time while riding the train are fucking savages. This isn’t your fucking back yard. We aren’t here watching your shitty kids play t-ball. If you have a call that can’t wait, then by all means make it, but keep it short and stop yelling. It's 2012, the person on the other end of the phone can hear you just fine. But if you are calling someone just to bullshit because you have the attention span of a six year old with debilitating ADHD, or to gab like a thirteen year old girl at a slumber party then you deserve nothing more than PAIN.
Penalty: $1,000 fine, a sandwich board that reads “My needs are more important that yours so everyone please feel uncomfortable while I brag about my golf handicap”
RULE #10 - Quarantine for Sick People
If you are sick and you absolutely HAVE TO go to work, then stand in the train vestibule or wear a surgical mask and cough all that shit back into your diseased face and not on me. For someone to think it’s totally okay to get on a train looking like one of those goddamn transvestites from
Twilight is just too much for my brain to process. Every time someone sneezes near me I want to spray them in the face with Lysol.
Penalty: $100 fine for each individual affected by perpetrator; must ride train wearing HazMat suit for six months regardless of health condition
RULE #11 - No Freeloading
Look, times are tough, economy, Wall Street, stocks, market, Euro, I get it. But still, stop trying to ride the fucking train for free. And stop hiding in the bathroom to avoid the ticket collector. Do you think they’ve never thought of your ingenious plan? Do you think you are ‘innovative’ for hiding in the piss and shit stained bathroom to avoid a $5 ticket? Well, you are not. And now we all have to wait while the MTA cops come and file a report because you are an asshole. And I have to piss. So thanks again.
Penalty: 2,000% of ticket’s face value fine, banned for life from MTA OR must act as bathroom attendant in Grand Central Terminal for six months to regain rider status and hand out gum and paper towels to homeless people taking dumps on the floor
