Bob's Angry Rants

Sometimes it seems like some of the events of my past are way more interesting than anything that is currently happening to me. With that in mind, I bring you this classic rant from the Spring of 2002. Let me set the scene. Our hero (me) has just gotten off of work and is getting on BART (the local mass-transit train/subway) to go to San Francisco for school. Now, BART trains are filled with seats designed to accommodate two passengers. Typically, as is traditional in the U.S., all empty seats are taken first before sitting next to someone else.

I walked onto the train and looked around and saw that every seat had at least one person in it so I turned to sit down in the seat closest to me, but saw that the person sitting there had placed his bag on the empty seat, a typical passive-aggressive way to try and prevent people from sitting next to you. That was when the following dialog occurred:

Me: Could you please move your bag?

Jerk: What?

Me: Could you please move your bag?

Jerk: What for?

Me: So I can sit down.

Jerk: Why don't you sit somewhere else?

Me: What?

Jerk: There are plenty of empty seats around here.

Me: What the hell is wrong with you?

Jerk: Why don't you ask someone else to sit next to them.

Me: Because I'm not asking them. I am asking you to move your bag.

Jerk: There are plenty of other seats.

Me: I'm sure that everyone else here would also like to have a seat all to themselves, why should you get that instead of them?

Jerk: I don't understand why you have to sit here.

Me: DO YOU THINK THAT SOMEHOW YOU ARE BETTER THAN EVERY OTHER PERSON ON THIS TRAIN AND THAT YOU DESERVE YOUR OWN SEAT? DO YOU THINK THAT YOU ARE SPECIAL? WELL, YOU'RE NOT!

Timid Woman one seat up: You can sit here if you like.

[I pause, glaring at the man, ultimately deciding not to waste any more time on this moron and sit with the timid woman.]

Me: Jackass.

End Dialog

Now it is true that it probably would have been easier for me to just sit next to someone who wasn't a total asshole from the start, but it was the principle of the thing. You can't just refuse to let people sit next to you. It's public transit! Interacting with, being near and maybe even touching another person is a risk that you have to take on public transit.

At the next stop, the train filled up and the jerk had no excuse to not move his bag at that point, so I don't know what he was trying to accomplish by pissing me off. He probably did think that he was special and had no idea what the fuss was all about. I'm sure that he went home and told all of his friends about the crazy Asian man who yelled at him for no good reason.

What a jackass.