Monday, May 07, 2007

Group Bonding

I've found that one of my favorite things is to have a really unusual person on the subway car and watching other people's reactions to them.

Scenario #1: Well dressed middle aged woman sitting on a bench on the subway. She begins yelling "I can't believe you! Don't touch me! An old woman sitting here and you sit on her! Don't sit on me!" Everyone starts making eye contact, rolling their eyes and smiling. Then when this other passenger gets up at the stop after be yelled from 86th St. to 59th St. another person sits down next crazy woman and she begins yelling at her. While it sounds uncomfortable, it was really funny and bonded all of the people on the car. Not as much as scenario #2.

Scenario #2: A couple of weeks ago on the first nice day of Spring I was riding the subway and I look behind me and there is an ~275 lb, incredibly muscular man listening to his headphones. Now that is not that uncommon, neither was the fact that he was wearing a wife beater, what was odd was that he was making his pecs dance to the music. Oh, and his music was loud enough that EVERYONE on the car could hear the bass line of his song. Sometimes one would go up, sometimes the other, sometimes both, sometimes they'd just shake. And he was VERY into this and had his eyes closed the whole time. The second I realized what was happening I start laughing hysterically into my arm (on the bar above), trying not to be too obvious, I kept sneaking glances and on the second glance I notice the guy sitting next to him. He is half the size of this guy, dressed business casual, and RIDICULOUSLY uncomfortable. That made me laugh even harder. There were very few people on the train not smiling that afternoon.

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