Fifteen Rules

So, after nearly thirty years of taking public transportation to and from work, in The World's Most (Self-)Important City, I finally learn that there are rules of etiquette therein and thereof. Fifteen of them, to be exact. But, according to PopCrunch.com, they are "unwritten." Obviously it's not my fault.

Get off your cellphone.
You only need one seat.
You’re the only one enjoying your ghettoblaster.
Take a shower and wear deodorant!
Get a room!
Stop, nobody likes your singing. Seriously.
Stop staring!
Control your kids!
Don’t be a Plague Monkey.
Keep your smelly-@$$ food wrapped up!
Get up for the Disabled/Elderly/Preggers if you can.
Have your bus fare ready when you get on!
Wait your turn!
Pick up your trash, this isn’t your apartment.
Talk quietly, we don’t want to hear your entire life story.

Now, about a couple of these ...

In DC, they're pretty good about the "priority seating" thing. In my case, I can walk, I can even run to the bus, and I can stand and wait for it. My problem is when I have to stand and brace myself for the stopping and starting when the bus is in a lot of traffic, and I have to lock my (arthritic) knees. Ten or fifteen minutes of that and I'll have to sit in the aisle, and/or crawl off the bus. Yeah, it can get that bad. I'm thinking of getting one of those canes with a built-in folding seat. I'm been pretty lucky so far. If I can't get a seat on a bus, I talk to the driver. If the driver is on the wrong side of brain-dead, I wait for the next one.

The other thing is about cell phone conversations. When Paul or "Sal" call and I'm on the bus, I keep my voice down and keep it short. Once there was a young woman who was prattling on with her girlfriend about intimate details of the latter's social life. Guess which rule I broke until she finally shut her yap.

Go ahead, guess!

(H/T to Katarzyna.)
.