Friday, March 31, 2006

Open letter to the 12-year-old boys playing some game that involves running back and forth across the subway platform

I don't care that you're having fun - more people should have fun in subway stations!
I don't care that you're making noise - it's a subway station, not a library.
I don't care that you're getting in the way - it's a busy station, everyone is in everyone else's way anyway, and I'm happy to deal with a little inconvenience in the name of the enormous amounts of fun you seem to be having.
I don't care that if you make one false move, you'll fall on the tracks and be in a life-threatening situation - your life is yours to risk.

However, I do care that if you fall in the tracks, power will have to be cut, and the whole subway line will grind to a halt, right in the middle of rush hour. This will mean that hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom are tired and hungry, will be late getting home. People who have to pee will be stuck on trains until they can restore power which, if you get hit by a train, they can't do until they've scraped all your guts off the tracks. People with jobs to get to - including important shift work like police and fire fighters and hospital workers - will be late. People with kids in daycare will have to pay the daycare extra to keep their kids later. University students with evening classes will miss very important information about what may be on their exam. People with dinner dates will be late, which may lead to someone being dumped for being late to their lover's special birthday dinner. People who have to get to the bank before it closes won't be able to pay their bills in time, thus accruing interest and hurting their credit rating. People who dropped off the car or their eyeglasses or their hearing aid to be fixed will have to go one more day without this valuable equipment. People who play on sports teams might not make their game, causing their team to lose. People with flights to catch may miss their plane, but have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for the plane ticket anyway. People who have to catch the GO may be stuck in the city and have to pay for a hotel. A priest on his way to give last rites to someone on their deathbed may be too late, thus condemning that soul to burn in hell for all eternity. A couple getting married may have to do without their rings, because the person who was brining the rings is stuck on the subway.

Whatever fun you were having wasn't worth the risk of inconveniencing all these people. Take your game somewhere else, where the worst that can happen if you mess up is you die.

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