Member-only story
Someone Offered Me Their Seat on the Subway and I Was Shocked
As rites of passage go, this one sucks
As I boarded the crowded subway car, I saw an empty seat and moved toward it. However, a closer assessment revealed why the spot was unclaimed— it was a two-seater bench with a Rubenseque woman occupying three-quarters of it. The thought of shimmying and squeezing myself in beside her held little appeal, so I backed off in a way I hoped suggested I didn’t want to sit down anyway.
But I did. I’d had a long, weary day at work, and my hip, which I’d recently learned was arthritic, was complaining loudly. And while I thought I was gliding through the train with youthful vigour, at least one other passenger saw me differently.
The man who noticed my apparent discomfort was a white guy in his 30s, casually dressed in a toque, jeans, and Blundstones. He looked up from his seat and said something I didn’t hear because I was listening to music recorded a decade before egg and sperm had collided to spit him into the world.
I pried out an earbud and gave my perplexed Labradoodle look. “I’m sorry?”
“Did you want to sit down?”
I glanced behind me to see if there were any pregnant or alternatively-abled people nearby he might be addressing, but no, it was me.
