Solidarity

[franceslievens]

On my commute from the music academy back home, I encountered two instances of city life that were extremes on the same solidarity scale. The first leg of my commute, I do by tram. Suddenly it comes to a halt in the middle of the street, behind another tram that's being held up. The driver gets out to investigate, as do most of the passengers. When the driver comes back, he informs us that a wrongly parked car is obstructing the tram in front, and we will need to wait for the removal of said car. The male passengers on the trams don't want to wait that long and decide to take measures into their own hands. I hear a sudden bang, and see the men entering the tram again, grinning. "Oh, they've moved the car," the driver says, and we're off again, with little delay.
On the underground the story's different, when I end up next to a music fan who has lost his headphones. What better way to listen to your music without headphones, than just let it sound from the speakers, right? So I sit next to this guy listening to bad R&B-music coming from his mp3-player, for no apparent reason other than that he doesn't have any headphones. So I moved seats. Maybe it was a cheapo way to get a bigger personal space on public transport.

Comments

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

Oh, he was just sharing his music!

In all seriousness: So annoying - remember the time when it was only people listening to music on their walkmen with the sound turned up and you could hear the untss-untss but not much else? That was bad enough.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

I have witnessed kids turning up the volume on their mobile phones or mp3-players before, but they were in fact sharing their music. Teenagers travelling in packs, listening to music: I find it annoying, but can understand. This guy was on his own, and then such obnoxious behaviour becomes frightening.