Smell & Switch

I have had different thoughts about the right criteria for selecting the subway train car on which I would like to ride. I started out getting on the one nearest to the stairs. I then started going to the one furthest behind the stairs, reasoning that it would be most empty and therefore most comfortable. I then decided that I liked the one at the head of the train because you could watch where the thing was going, and that was exciting.

There is another basis on which to decide, and this one may override anything else. I don't want to be on cars that smell bad. Maybe you're thinking that I'm being funny or naive, that all subway cars smell bad. Maybe that's so in other cities whose trains systems go back further, but here it's not. Most train cars are fine, and for that matter so are most buses (excepting the ones which run overnight). There is the odd car which smells foul.

If possible, unpleasantly-scented cars ought to be avoided. At most stations, this is not realistic. The train pulls in, and you have a few seconds to get on before it pulls out. Sadly, there's no time to be picky about the cars. You get on the one you're near when the train comes. No, this luxury of selecting cars based on whether the smell all right only really is available when you are at one terminus or the other. Then though, it's a very pleasant thing.

I'm the type who is hesitant to send back even an egregiously incorrect food order at a restaurant, so I hemmed and hawed when I decided that the train car I'd gotten on downtown was odious in odor. I felt like I'd made a commitment that I should honor, or maybe I was being lazy. I realized that this attitude was dumb, and no reason to be breathing through my mouth for forty minutes on my way back home. I switched cars, and I'm quite glad that I did.