The other day on the way home on the train I noticed a slightly funny situation. On the way back from Kobe during rush hour the folding seats near the doors of the train cars are locked in the up position to free up more room as people come in and out. The regular seats are still in operation, but these auxilary seats are there for people to use the rest of the day outside of rush hour.
Once they leave the station next to mine the seats unlock, and the conductor announces that they are available for use, but since I am always getting off in one or two minutes I don’t really have a need to use them. Also usually the train is still quite full, so taking up the extra space is sometimes considered a little rude.
Anyway, the other night they unlocked the seats and standing in front of the nearest one was a high school boy and an older guy reading an English textbook and giving off a whiff of the crazy. You could tell (well, at least I could tell) that the guy was off. Apparently the boy couldn’t tell, and he asked the guy if it was OK to put the seat down and sit. Since they were both standing where the seat would eventually sit down, it is only polite to do so. The guy said sure, and they both sat down. Normally that’s where the story ends – they sit on the same seat together silently for the remainder of the ride and then get off when they arrive at their stop.
This time was different. The crazy guy saw the boy’s request to use the seat as an opening into a conversation, and he started making comments to the boy in a loud voice that had most of the train car looking over to see who was disturbing the tranquility of the train ride. The crazy guy commented on how clever the boy was to suggest sitting, how kids these days weren’t that smart, how horseracing is becoming more popular in Japan, how long a train ride it was, how the kid’s haircut was very appropriate for playing baseball. He kept making weird comments, and the kid nodded politely and looked for a way out. He even tried sleeping, but the comments still came.
I felt bad for the kid – he was just trying to be polite while he grabbed a seat. Instead he had to endure the crazy guy. They were still sitting together when I got off in Okubo… for all I know they both enjoyed the experience. It reminded me of a slogan that Terry Nolan used to hang up in the winemaking office at Benziger – “No good deed goes unpunished”.
