The Kvetch Corner

And Other Ways To Raise City Revenue

On my public transport rant at the moment, allow me to vent a bit more on how DC could improve. First, let me laugh out loud at the hand-written note I found recently in what looked like a fourth grader's handwriting stating "It Works" posted over the button to an elevator at Metro Center. I presume it is there because usually it doesn't (rather par for the course.)

Next after confering with my quite civilized relatives, we uniformly agree that the following are
most annoying on public transport (in no particular order)- and when I say annoying, I mean hair-ripping out scratching chalk on the blackboard someone is going to punch someone out annoying.

1. The guy who plays dvds on his laptop on Amtrak without headphones. I know it's not the "quiet car" but it also isn't the broadcast loudspeaker like you are the stadium announcer car.
2. The guy who refuses to pull his baggy pants up over his A-crack. Disgusting.
3. The guy who can't stop loudly swearing into his cell phone.
4. The guy whose headphones to his I-whateverthingamagic is making all that freaking noise- are so loose you can hear them anyway two cars away.
5. The guy who knows that they will fine you some places for swearing on public transport ($500. recently reported on a connecticut tv station to the shock and horror of the audience)
so he has an 'app' or a preprogrammed verbal finger in the air that he activates with a press of a button under his coat thinking no one will figure out where it came from.

I am all for a police state if it will cause there to be conductors roaming the metro and metro buses to stop this madness and ticket anyone doing this- particularly the A-crackheads. If you are either so stoned or so dumb you can't figure out what pant size you are please buy a bigger belt and tighten it so we don't have to see your A-crack. I am all for ticketing A-crackheads.
And if you are caught swearing like a lunatic or can't shut up on a cell phone conversation until you get to your stop on a bus full of kids and elderly people just trying to quietly read their book, you should get not only a ticket, but a boot to the back-side off the darn bus. Let's call it a 'breach of the peace.' Or in the A-crackhead case, a Breach of the Britches. $500 bucks. That will teach you to start wearing clothes that fit.

The broader public policy considerations in civilizing the nation are obvious. We use too much gas driving gas guzzlers everywhere and we want to thus encourage use of public transport more-don't we? Carbon footprint reduction, etc... The skank factor is a major deterrent. Imagine that on a London double decker bus. Just wouldn't happen. London has all races, ethnicities, religions roaming the buses- and no one dares. It is called basic courtesy. Manners. Makes me think the lead in the water here fried too many brains-or was it the drugs. Can't they say something in schools? Like swearing is for pigs. And makes you sound ignorant. And will incite someone wanting to deck you. And you will never get a real job with a mouth like a sewer so say bye bye to life outside the clink or brig. or something.