Public transit-gressions

Most people are aware of the types of activities you shouldn’t engage in while riding public transit. Out of respect for your neighbor, you don’t sing along to your iPod, talk loudly on your cell phone, or try to convert that person to Christianity. However, every day average public transit riders laugh in the face of these implied social contracts, singing, talking, and proselytizing their way about town. So, I’ve learned to cope with these assholes, recognizing that at times, I’m that asshole. Thems the breaks when you’re riding public transit.

However, there are some activities that are inexcusable. The most egregious and most common in my experience: nail clipping.

On more than one occasion while riding trains, planes, and automobiles, I have witnessed a passenger clipping his nails. Somehow, the activity is important enough that it has to be done before the person arrives at his destination, but not so important that he could set aside five minutes to do it in the comfort of his own bathroom.

I don’t get the thought process:
“Oh heavens, I couldn’t bear the thought of showing up to work with long nails. That’s unseemly and disgusting. What would my colleagues think!? Why, I’ll just clip my nails right here, on this very crowded mode of public transportation I am currently using, in the presence of fifty complete strangers who are now within in direct range of my nail pieces as they fly off my clippers.”

It’s the Uggs and a miniskirt of personal hygiene habits. (How can it be both hot enough to wear a miniskirt and cold enough to wear Uggs?)

When I see a person clipping his nails, I want to follow him off the bus and to his next engagement. Then I want to tell his boss, date, drug dealer, whoever: “Hey, your man here is disgusting! If you think he observes good hand hygiene, you’re mistaken. Not only does he tend to keep his nails creepy long, but when he does deign to clip them, he does so on the bus. Filthy.”

However, nail clipping pales in comparison to the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen on public transit: a seated subway passenger eating whole boiled crabs. I mean, obviously he wasn’t eating the crabs whole; he wasn’t a complete heathen. He was cracking the shells and picking out the good meat, but still.