Manners battle

[firstfrost]

This morning, I was standing on the T, when a guy talking to his girlfriend decided to drop his newspaper (one of the little free Boston Metros, not a complicated heavy one) on the floor. After a few minutes of being vaguely irritated at him, I picked it up and handed it to him. "I think you dropped this, sir?" He gave me a dirty look, and took it. Then a few minutes later, he dropped it again. I picked it up for him again.

"Sir, you seem to be having some trouble with your paper."
"I dropped it, I'm sorry."
"I know. Here you go. There are trash cans in all the stations outside the train."
"Well, I'll throw it out there, then."
"Good."
"But until then, I'll leave it on the floor."

At this point, his girlfriend took the paper. I'm honestly not sure where I would have gone from there. Most people who I hand their trash to have the decency to be a little embarassed and throw it away later. And most people have the instinct to take something that's been handed to them, but he had clearly overcome his instinct by the second time.

I wonder if he talked her into dropping it on the floor again once I had gotten off the train.

Comments

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

So, when I was a kid my parents apparently had to stop me from going up to strangers and telling them to pick up their trash... sometimes, said strangers being big, intimidating, and covered with tattoos...

[tallou.livejournal.com]

I love this image.

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

Isn't that basically what you do for a living now?