So I'm riding on a Metro train, sitting in a window seat, when someone sits down next to me. Nothing wrong with that. The train is crowded, and the seat next to me is one of the last empty ones.
But as surely as the train fills up, it will empty out. And true to form, as more and more people get off at their stops, we reach the point where there are several empty benches.
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Coming Soon to a Black-and-White TV (The Washington Post, Mar 16, 2005)
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A Big Crowd at the High End (The Washington Post, Mar 15, 2005)
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Answer Man: Name That Agency (The Washington Post, Mar 14, 2005)
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A Winter's Tale That Melts Away (The Washington Post, Mar 11, 2005)
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The fellow is still sitting next to me. I kind of wish he would move.
On another occasion, it is I who plops down in an aisle seat on a crowded train, hemming in a person against the window. Again the train starts to empty out. I consider moving, but then I think: Will this fellow be offended? Will he think that I jumped up and scurried to another seat because being so close to him made my skin crawl?
I face this commuter etiquette quandary regularly. My philosophical musing takes this path: I would find it weird if I was the only person on the train and a person sat down next to me. In fact, common sense suggests that any totally empty seat should be taken before a person resorts to joining a 50 percent occupied bench.
But where is the dividing line after that? How empty need the train get before a person moves? Should a person ever move? Is it an insult to move? Or is it a common courtesy?
What do you think? And more importantly, what do you do?
Maybe I won't have to worry about this in a few months, if Metro starts taking out seats and we end up standing.
There's No 'W' in 'Team'
A while back, Matt Hussman e-mailed me with a plea for help. Where could he find a Washington Nationals baseball cap? But not just any Washington Nationals cap. "All I can find are hats with a W on the front," Matt wrote, "and for reasons I don't need to go into, I don't want a hat with a Dubya on the front."
What he wanted was one of those hats with the interlocking "DC" on them. These are the "batting practice" caps, and they've been as rare as unicorn lymph. Jose Emenaker, a manager at the Sports Authority in Rockville, hasn't had any. He said he sells out of other stuff pretty quickly. One day this week, all he had in stock were some Nationals beach towels and one woman's shirt.
I found a nice selection of merchandise at the official team store at RFK Stadium, where I stopped this week for a birthday present for My Lovely Wife. Like Matt, she had her heart set on a cap with "DC" on it. There were plenty of "W" caps (in red for home and blue for away games) but precious few "DC" ones, and most of those were in small. Luckily, My Lovely Wife is microcephalic, so I was able to score a blue one with a red bill.
I asked the folks at the store what was most popular, hat-wise. They said that while they've sold lots of "W" caps, "local people" prefer the ones that say "DC."
Let's hear it for the local people!
This local person ended up dropping a lot of money there. The hat was $29, and the batting practice jersey was $105. They're available at the Major League Baseball Web site for $25 and $80, respectively.
