Seat Hogs

The Washington Post broke yesterday with exclusive news: people don’t like punks who refuse to share. Really, I was stunned. Who knew that anti-social behavior is so unpopular?

Seat hogging in D.C. has become epidemic. According to the Post and my own observations, hogs come in a variety of types: those who park themselves in the aisle seat, glowering if anyone asks for the empty seat next to them; those who stow wet umbrellas or their mud covered feet on the seat accompanying theirs. I have even seen people position themselves right between the two seats. It’s not a size thing—the other day, a stick insect on a cell was sprawled across both seats, as if waiting for her slave boys to drop grapes into her ever voluble mouth.

Personally, I make it a point to punish these people with my presence. (Ask yourself who’s crazier, the person who goes out of his way avoid strangers or the girl who intentionally forces herself upon him to prove a point.)

I feign stupidity, “Oh, is that your umbrella? I could really use a new umbrella.” Imagine being territorial and some idiot both misses the point that you don’t want them to sit with you, and then they try to nab your property.

Usually that gets a hissed “Yessss,” and as they reach to guard the umbrella, I plop down. On more than one occasion I’ve bothered to strike up a conversation. Usually I end up talking to myself, but we all love the little games we play.

Often, I simply say, “Do you mind,” and social norms kick in and they’ll slide over.

My impulse toward compulsory seat sharing began when I was pregnant. There were a few months in the second trimester when other passengers might be excused for thinking I was hauling a spare tire, but by the third, the basketball under my shirt gave me away.

Some of the most hardened seat hogs stood up and offered their seats. More than once, though, no one noticed me (or pretended not to), as I clung to the metal overhead rail, hurdling down the track. I’m not too proud to say, I sometimes nudged people with my belly until they gave in and offered a seat. I suppose I became personally familiar with a bit of the entitlement that the hoggers feel.

Other than the times I sported a child-swollen uterus, I’ve alternated between thinking seat hogs are a bit crazy or just socially pained individuals daily tortured by public transit. I remember when my husband was studying personality tendencies and disorders, he was given a cheat sheet with drawings of cars in a parking lot. The car with dependency issues squeezes in to share a space with another car. The car with OCD has markers on the ground measuring equidistance from the lines on all sides. The passive-aggressive car parked crossways, taking up two spaces, while the anti-social one blocks other cars. In the schizotypal spot, there was a space ship.

“Which am I most like?” I asked, laughing.

My husband had his finger on the alien craft before I finished the sentence.

I was a bit insulted, but also registered accuracy when I heard it. So thinking about the hoggers on the train (who, if they could take up three seats, would), I’m finding the tiniest thread of empathy. Sure, they could try harder to shake their negative tendencies, but in any population of so many people, you’re bound to find some at the extremes. Perhaps it is just a fact of nature. In fact, there’s something unnatural about shooting at great speed in a steel box down a rail line with such an abominable safety record. Would survival of the fittest incline one toward snuggling in with strangers while the flight-or-fight impulse is drumming through one’s veins? These alpha-riders could just be an example of Darwin in action--or inaction when, bricklike, they refuse to budge and paste on their fight-faces.