Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Chicagoland Your desire to air out your crotch makes my mornings worse
Posted by Whet Moser on 08.05.09 at 03:47 PM
Since it's rude-transit-asshole day, I'm flagging Tamale Chica's needed complaint about CTA leg-spreaders (via Windy Citizen). Honestly, people. But I do want to correct one assertion.
I am sure that if we were to get up, and another guy sat down in our place, Mr. Leg Spreader would suddenly figure out a way to keep his mutty thighs off of his new male CTA companion.
Would that it were so, but as a guy, I can almost promise he wouldn't. I've never really understood this phenomenon, beyond my assumption that most people are ill-mannered out of obliviousness, so I just assume it's a desire by the leg-spreader to signal to both men and women that he has enormous testicles and is or is not to be messed with, as the case may be.
For what it's worth, I don't encourage jabbing people with umbrellas, but her use of his leg as a table for her bag is perfectly appropriate, as would be stepping on his foot when exiting the bus, as a way of training barn-raised CTA passengers where their feet should be. My rule of thumb is not to go out of my way, but simply to use a politely conservative assumption of my personal space as if they weren't there.
Comments (4)
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At least she carries a small, fold-up umbrella. The public dis-courtesy that bugs me most of all are those umbrellas as wide as a car. No one ever makes any effort to raise them or tilt them or otherwise clear the way for you to pass, so you have no choice but to duck or get a tine in the eye. We call it "urban jousting" in my house.
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Ah, the joys of the daily commute. I sometimes miss it. I confess that I've played enough pickup basketball games to learn how to use elbows as (subtle) weapons. Demarcating personal space is easier though when standing. The sprawler is a tougher call.
I find that getting nice and snug up against that leg usually induces enough touchy feeley contact to cause the leg to shrink back into its foreskin.
I too engage in occasional training of CTA passengers who seem to have misread their rule book. My pet peeve is try to board the train before those exiting have done so. I'm a short dude and not prone to physical altercations. But I think nothing of shoulder-checking someone trying to push their way past exiting commuters.
