Seatmates
The train ride was a slow one this morning, with an extra fifteen minutes of starting and stopping as we made our way through some large interchanges. I was sitting in one of the rows that's face to face with the next row. There was one man across from me, and across the aisle there was a woman and another man in his row. Facing them was another passenger, my seatmate across the aisle, a heavyset square-figured middle aged woman, who whiled away the journey playing a video game on her swivel phone. She took this thing out when we first stopped between stations and kept it up, no kidding, for at least twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of the same forty-five second Nintendo jingle. Over. And Over. And Over. The man across from me shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The fellow diagonally across from me meaningfully cleared his throat. Nothing. I contemplated offering to help her disable the sound on her game, but I knew if she had any sense at this point she never let one of her neighbors handle that phone. So with the violent weight shifts, back arches, and butt pivots that are the international signs for SHUT THAT DAMN THING OFF!, we sat and endured. Cowards.