Turning The Other Cheek (literally...)

This morning, a happy friday morning, I got on the subway and found, as per usual, an open seat that I occupied. It is a bit of a ride between A and B, so I always choose to sit. A few stops later, a woman who is larger than I, got on, and squeezed herself between me and the person in the seat 2 over... pushing out of the seat I was in, far enough to be uncomfortable. these are the butt-shaped seats, and other than sitting in the seat itself, having the ridge right into your sitz bone would keep many more bottoms than the princess and the pea unhappy.

So, I engaged in border warfare. Refusing to give ground and be moved any further out of my seat. And I'm not a tiny person either, but damnit, i was there first! MY SEAT! And, I have measured my own width and know that I generally fit within one seat-space. I sat and used my I-pod, texted on my cell, and played ignorant to her clear frustration at me not sitting astride the ridge between two seats and thereby making her more comfortable and me, less.

After a while, I had to ask myself, "Is this worth it?" and recalled a recent conversation with someone who shared that he'd not reacted when a drunk man spat on him... So, I thought... and realized... I'm healthy, I can stand, I'm holding onto a pole and listening to music (and is that ever a bad thing?),this seat isn't important, I'll be working in my seat all day... So, if it is THAT important for this woman with her fat ass to occupy a plastic subway seat so much that she'd push me out of mine... well.. she can have it.

So I stood, back facing her, no longer occupying my (former) half-empty seat, or the half-empty one adjacent to me, wishing a bit that I had a fart somewhere in my system...

and in a few stops, sat in the newly unoccupied seat next to mine, when another person got up. Measuring again, my ass, for conformance with subway-ass specifications (and yes I do fit).

so, the moral of the tale is,

sometimes it's just better to let someone have the plastic seat if its that important to them.