Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Actions Speak Louder Than Words aka Please Take Your Belongings (and your lobster) With You As You Exit the Train!


            We’ve all heard the expression about actions versus words. In fact, most of us have used that expression in an argument, even though none of us ever want to be on the receiving end of it. Why? Because it’s true. We can all TRY to talk a good game when we want/need to, but at the end of the day, it’s someone’s behavior that is the truest indicator of his or her feelings. How many times have people told me I have the worst poker face? Answer: you don’t wanna know. In fact, I suck at actual poker for that very reason. I can never bluff. My fellow players always know when I have a good (or bad) hand. It shows right on my face. And sometimes you need to have a lobster dropped right at your feet to remind you of how people’s actions are as obvious (and stinky) as a fart in a car.

            Yes, you got that right. People’s actions can stink. I mean, the things we do that show who we are and how we feel is astounding! Even if we later regret our actions, in the heat of the moment our behavior is proof positive of where we are at. Take the lobster incident. I was commuting home from work Saturday night via the subway, and was too exhausted to do anything but people watch. There was a woman standing by the doors who was clutching a shopping bag in her arms, presumably because it was so heavy it would’ve broken if she had held it by the handles. Well, that’s exactly what happened. All of a sudden, the bottom of the bag ripped open and all of the contents dropped onto the floor so loudly that everyone in the car turned to look at her. (My heart felt her embarrassment.) The bag was filled with plastic to go containers, full of seafood (probably from Red Lobster). A few of the containers broke open and there it was. Pieces of lobster and some unidentified fish sitting on the floor of the subway car. Take a look:



Pretty gross, right? Well what happened next was even grosser. The subway pulls into the stop, the doors open and the woman, starts KICKING her seafood onto the subway platform as people are trying to get on the train! The doors close before she can complete the process, and everyone is horrified and shocked by what is happening. And there was little any of us could do. If I had any kind of plastic bag on me I would’ve certainly handed it to her, but there was no way any of us wanted to touch her half eaten seafood! Can you say airborne disease? I like to help people, but even I have my limits. It felt like the entire subway car had come to life, our eyes unable to look away from this bad accident while we simultaneously waited with baited breath to see what happened next.

            NOTHING. That’s what happened. The seafood-spiller-in-question wasn’t doing ANYTHING. Once the train pulled out of the station, she started rambling to the girl next to her about her plight. The ultimate crime was when the chick got off the train at the next stop, leaving the rest of us with her dirty seafood platter! I honestly don’t care what the hell kind of excuses she was giving to the straphanger next to her. The bottom line is girlfriend simply exited the train leaving a trail of lobster and some kind of mystery fish (probably tilapia if it was, in fact, from Red Lobster) on the floor of the subway car. The best part was the bonding that occurred after the doors shut and how we all started hypothesizing on what that girl must’ve been thinking. Someone joked that it probably wasn’t even her stop. She simply wanted to hightail it outta there and leave us with her lobster tails.  And as my cousin Mark said, “Who leaves lobster behind?” It’s LOBSTER.

Most of us were empathetic to her plight. Admittedly, I would be mortified if that happened to me. But I would not just leave my leftovers on the floor of the train without DOING SOMETHING! I would probably have picked it up, as gross as that sounds, put it back in the containers and exited at the next stop—whether that was my stop or not—and dumped all of it into the nearest trash can. Life is full of embarrassing moments, but what shows character is how you rise above your humiliation and move forward. This girl certainly moved forward… right off the train. But she left her self-respect on that subway car, in my opinion.

            It reminds me of those badly behaved individuals who come into restaurants and say they have a “gluten allergy”, and then can later be seen at dessert time shoving their fork into someone’s piece of chocolate cake. Why don’t you just be honest and say you’re avoiding carbs and see if your entrée can be modified accordingly, instead of making up stories and forcing the restaurant to jump through hoops? Do you have any respect for people who actually DO have a gluten allergy and thus need modifications made for medical reasons? I think we need to remember that what we DO shows who we ARE. Also, that people are not oblivious to the things we do.  And as it is the beginning of the holiday season, I am going to try to watch the things I do. After all, I want Santa to see me on my best behavior! Happy holidays, all! 

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