Quiet Pirates

Week ending 2/23/07:

Ah, the sounds of silence! Where are they when you need them. Nothing spoils a relaxing or productive rail ride than the loud talkers. Where is the mute in commute? These "quiet pirates" make it almost impossible to concentrate on finishing a work project, reading the paper or catching a quick nap. It's not regular conversation to which I'm referring. It's the bar room loud, happy hour scene that's annoying in this setting. The content of their conversations are bad enough (total nonsense for the most part), but the volume speaks volumes. My latest example this week was a gang of three, mid-thirty somethings on their way home from work. They were sitting in one of the quad seating areas (two rows facing each other) that creates a cozy little "den of inebriaty". These "three weird sisters" chortled and gaffawed over their calderon of Chardonnay. Every incident described by any one of them, average day events for us all, were enough to send these three into convulsions. "My Thanedom for a muzzle." "It's not the quiet car," I reminded myself, but in any case, there should be some common courtesy extended beyond the one tranquil-car capacity.

My second annoying example this week is a semi-regular from the morning jog. This guy is a "three-pete" (Monday,Wednesday,Friday) rider. He appears sane enough, an older dude from the Eisenhower administration era. He joins us in Wilmington, on his way to Gotham, and usually grabs a seat in the quiet car. He's well-dressed, almost natty, but not quite. He doesn't make any fuss until the far side of Trenton. Then he starts. I call him "Jack". "Jack the Ripper". He begins talking to himself (it's supposed to be your silent voice in your head, but it's not). He also has meticulously folded various sections of his newspaper, and that's when it really begins, the maddening RIPPING, RIPPING, RIPPING! He tears long strips of the paper, one slow pull at a time. Over and over and over and over! Sort of like nails on the chalk board. He neatly folds each strip and places them in the seat back magazine net. I've actually read of this obsessive habit. Some ad people have tracked it as a positive thing for helping folks identify bargains, tearing them out of the paper, and passing them along to others, thus giving an ad much broader exposure. At first I thought this was Jack's thing, but upon further observation, Not! He looks like it's a purposeful process, with specific targets in mind, but than he just folds them up and places them in the seat pocket. In any case, it's an annoying distraction, particularly magnified in an otherwise library-like quiet car. I'm hoping he or his newspaper subscription expires before too long (only kidding, sort of, no really, I mean it).