Metro ick

I have a love/hate relationship with the metro. I love that it’s fast and usually efficient. I hate when it’s crowded and smelly and not so efficient. I love looking at a metro map when I’m going somewhere to discover that it’s on a direct line, I hate walking through miles of tunnels whenever I have to change metro. I love the fact that it’s inexpensive, hate the fact that it’s not air-conditioned. Love the metro stop at the Louvre with the Egyptian artefacts and the art nouveau metro entrance at Abbesses, hate when people have accidents and either fall or jump in front of it. (Not that I’ve personally seen it, and I’m so grateful for that, but still worth hating. I feel so bad for the drivers of these things who actually have seen that)

I’ve seen people pass out on the metro, throw up. There are pan handlers, musicians and singers, people selling crap, pick pockets, oglers, sweaty people who have forgotten how a shower functions, people who pass gas and try to be circumspect about it. There are nose-pickers, butt scratchers, people making out, people staring at the people making out, people listening to music, reading, occasionally dancing. You have people from every walk of life, businessmen, kids going to school, pensioners doing whatever they do during the day (it always amazes me that people who aren’t forced to will get on a metro in rush hour, but there you go)

I take the metro around the same time most mornings. Usually there are some familiar faces. The guy who once asked for my number, the little Asian-American boy whose hair always sticks up at odd angles and is the cutest little thing in red glasses ever, the guy who works in a building right next to the one I work in. But today I met for the first time a very peculiar and frankly unpleasant breed of metro dweller, the rubber. Now everyone who’s been on a crowded metro has had to suffer through the annoying experience of having someone slide their hand against your butt, or maybe even someone try to cop a feel of a breast. Unpleasant, annoying, but usually a stern look or a ‘Hey asshole’ takes care of that. This morning however I was standing in the very crowded cart, and I admit in close vicinity of several people, when I felt someone press against my back and start to rhythmically rub himself (could have been a her in theory I suppose) against me. And there was no mistaking this for innocent crowded metro touching. This was close to a stop, so I pushed away, turned around, called the guy a ‘fucking pervert’ and moved to another cart.
I haven’t felt that dirty since I saw a flasher when I was in my teens. I desperately wanted to go home and take a shower, but due to a meeting, I couldn’t. Unfortunately my office doesn’t have a shower, otherwise I would have been in it the minute I arrived at my office.
Now here’s what I’m wondering… how should I have dealt with this. How do other people deal with it?
Part of me wishes I’d had the reflex of kneeing him in the unmentionables, but that probably would have led to a colourful visit in jail. Maybe it’s time to buy a car and stop taking the metro in rush hour. For now I’ll just try to stay away from too crowded carts. Maybe I should buy a tazer gun…

(March 22, 2006)