It is a well-known fact that if you are not a "people person," then New York is NOT the city for you. You cannot walk on the sidewalk, ride the subway, stand in line for an Egg McMuffin or two iced coffees, move around your apartment WITHOUT BRUSHING UP AGAINST ANOTHER HUMAN BEING.
Nine million people live here. They live beside each other, on top of each other, below, in front and in back of each other. They press up against each other on crowded trains, they sit next to each other on buses and in restaurants. They hear each other's conversations, they read each other's newspapers, they listen to each other's music, they buy each other's furniture, they make furtive eye contact when they're caught standing...
New York is basically one huge dormitory. We all live together. Everything is shared, nothing is private, even in the private little box you call your apartment.
This is why is BOGGLES MY MIND that someone sitting on a crowded subway car would even ATTEMPT to surreptitiously pick their nose! There is NO WAY IN HELL someone's NOT going to see you put your finger in your nose and wiggle it around.
There's also no way in hell someone's NOT going to see you checking yourself out in every available reflective surface, or picking your wedgie while walking down the street, or sneezing and wiping your nose on your sleeve, or leaving the bathroom without washing your hands, or making out with your girlfriend on the train, or mumbling under your breath about what a fucking bitch the woman who just sat in the seat you were heading for on the subway is, or changing your baby on the floor in Victoria's Secret, or surfing the internet at work for a new job/car/blackmarket baby/possible causes for that itchy, red situation/apartments in Los Angeles, or scratching your wig, or picking your face, or picking your teeth, or littering, or puking on the sidewalk after too much sake, or plucking stray pubes in the women's locker room, or rubbing up against helpless women, again, on crowded trains or any other number of disgusting things your mama APPARENTLY didn't smack your ass for doing when you were younger and didn't know any better.
I guess when you live in such a crowded city, and you move around in tunnels, and you've always got something you need to do or somewhere you need to be, and traveling here and there consumes much of your day and eats into your nose-picking, butt-scratching, crotch-rubbing, picking-a-fight-with-your-baby-daddy-over-the-big-ass-stroller-ON-A-CROWDED-TRAIN time, you learn to get these things in when you can. And because it IS crowded, and because you know, somewhere in the back of your mind, that someone always has their eyes on you, you learn to actually ignore the fear of scrutiny, and so the definitition of what is and isn't appropriate in public becomes broadly interpreted on an individual basis. And since New Yorkers would rather DIE than acknowledge any existence outside their own, you get away with it.
Good-Bye nosepickers! Though, not for long - I'm sure we'll meet again in my rearview mirror!
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2 comments:
I hate when people apply makeup on the subway. Mainly because most of the makeup smells. I secretly would like to see someone put their own eye out with one of those mascara brushes.
The thing about riding the train is that the unspoken ediquette is that you don't look at anyone else and they mind their own too. Of course, all of us have sensed being looked at, and as quick as you can say "NY minute" we know that despite following the rules, we have just been peeped, thereby making us want to do the same. I mean, the subway is the ultimate cross-section of NYC life. We shouldn't look, but look at what we are missing!
I think the person picking his nose either throught A) FUCK IT, or, B) Assumed the NYC ruled applied. Earphones are on and eyes are on the floor.
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