This Really Is Public Transportation

Today I was checking andimnotlying when I died laughing.

Quoted from Scalp to Nostrils in the Armpit Jungle, June 19th, 2008 by Jeff Simmermon:

“It was a real armpit jungle on the subway this morning, people jammed up in there scalp-to-nostrils like a bunch of soft and complicated Tetris blocks. Everyone flexed their brains real real hard to create a personal force-field, either by staring at a piece of reading material or cranking the iPod and doing the sort of vague-dance-lip-synch that says “hey fuck you, world, I’m so not a part of this that I am astrally projecting myself into a nightclub and at that nightclub on the astral plane I just don’t care about NOTHIN’.”

Then somebody’s weapons-grade anal vapors wafted through the car like a grey-green angel of death. Most people completely ignored it, though the dancing lip syncher did seem to stop opening her mouth quite so wide. There was nowhere to go and nothing to do, just sit there and suck it up in the most literal sense.

One guy just stood there ignoring the fragrance and just eating his breakfast like everything was cool. He methodically worked his way through a baguette, pressing a flattened palm against the tail end and shoving it into his steadily chewing mouth like a log into a wood chipper.

On a good day, eating on the subway is a narrow cut above eating in the bathroom. And we all know that any food that is taken into the bathroom is automatically garbage. There’s molecules flying around in there, man, and they settle on everything. This was far from a good day to eat on the subway. This was bringing food into a funky molecule hurricane.

The human mind naturally tries to draw patterns, to find relationships and pull a thin skin of order over a chaotic world. I was certain that this baguette-chipper was the train farter, immune to his own poison. Then he got off the train and whoever it was crop-dusted the car again.

The train finally stopped and disgorged a couple people, let some fresh air in. For a moment, the deadly anal death-angel aroma traded places with its musical equivalent: the lilting sounds of an Amazonian pan-flute band. For just a second there it was all farts and flute music and faces too close — then some folks got off, the A/C kicked in, and the train doors clipped off the music before we pulled away.”

Random Unrelated Note: If I were playing a rousing game of memory, I would totally have a match: