The SEPTA Chronicles, Part 1

I think that if I had to choose one aspect of Philadelphia that best captures the essence of the entire city, I would choose SEPTA, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority. Thousands- maybe more- of Philadelphians ride SEPTA every day, whether it’s a bus, train, subway, elevated line, or trolley. These riders consist of any and every type of person, from the wealthy white businessman in a suit and tie, to the high school/university student on his/her way to class, to the most impoverished old alcoholic man who had to beg on the streets to pay for his bus fare. Some of these people ride SEPTA multiple times a day, every day; others have only boarded once in their lives. Many rely on it as their only means of transportation. Others use it primarily to get to their Center City jobs from the suburbs, because driving is

a nightmare.

What does this incredible diversity combined with such a high concentration of people in one specific type of public space mean to a budding young anthropologist who also happens to ride SEPTA every day? Well, I definitely don’t sleep through my morning trolley ride, that’s for sure.

Anyone who rides SEPTA with some degree of regularity will attest to the fact that there exists some sort of unwritten, unspoken list of rules and etiquette regulations for riders. This list is not something you can read, and it’s not something you can write down. It requires a considerable amount of time to learn the various rules, and even longer to master them. It’s something that can really only be learned through firsthand experience. And if that’s not daunting enough, don’t forget that you will be ridiculed by your fellow passengers if you break any of these rules, knowingly or otherwise. Really, if you’re not a quick learner, SEPTA might not be for you. SEPTA also might not be for you if you lack the ability to move the fuck away from the back door so people can get out, dammit.

Anyway, since I can’t really create a comprehensive list of SEPTA etiquette rules with any reasonable degree of accuracy, I figured I’d do the next best thing. I’ll share some of my more unusual personal experiences with SEPTA and the various rules I learned from those experiences. I will document these in another ongoing series called The SEPTA Chronicles. And the best part is that, as long as I continue to live in Philly, I will keep having new experiences that I can share!

The SEPTA Chronicles, Part 1: “Elderly or Disabled”

The first couple of seats in the front of all SEPTA buses are reserved for people who have a more difficult time getting around, such as old people, handicapped people, and fat people (only in Philadelphia.). However, it is typically permissible to occupy one of these seats if you don’t fall into one of the above categories, as long as no one else on the bus needs that seat more than you.

I sat in one of these seats one morning last summer as I rode the bus to work. It was one of the last open seats left, and I always prefer to sit in an open seat, even if it’s less-than-desirable, than to clog the aisle by standing unnecessarily. Plus, I fully intended to vacate that seat if someone got on who needed it.

As I sat and the bus drove on, I became engrossed in composing an email to Brad, wishing him good luck on a presentation he’d be giving that day. I wasn’t paying complete attention to my surroundings, but I was definitely keeping an eye out for anyone old or handicapped who might need my seat. This did not include the gentleman who was standing in front of me, so I didn’t notice him until he cleared his throat and said to me angrily, “Are you elderly or disabled?”

I looked up, taken aback by the question. “Uh, I’m sorry?” I said, and he repeated himself, this time more angrily.

“Are you elderly, or disabled?”

My confusion and surprise was justified, for multiple reasons. One, of course, was that a stranger had engaged me in conversation, seemingly at random, when I had clearly been otherwise occupied. But after this man had repeated himself, I realized that he expected me to yield my seat to him. In fact, he was clearly appalled by the fact that I hadn’t yet done so. This was the real source of my confusion, because this man, who conveyed his full-on outrage at my failure to vacate my seat for him by arrogantly asking if I was “elderly or disabled” when I was very clearly neither, was just as non-elderly and non-disabled as I was.

I mean, he was definitely older than me. I would have put him in his fifties at the oldest; more likely, he was in his late forties. He was slightly overweight, balding, and dressed in a suit, tie, and glasses, with no apparent evidence of a physical disability that prevented him from being able to stand for a slightly extended period of time. Well, unless you count Douchebag Disease as a physical disability. Because he definitely had that.

There was nothing at all wrong with this guy. There was no reason he couldn’t have stood, except for the fact that he was grumpy and lazy and thought he was more important than I was. He wanted to exert the authority he thought he had by kicking me out of my seat so he could sit his fugly ass down in it and feel a little better about the fact that he was such a horrible person.

And you know how I know he was a horrible person, aside from the fact that he was kicking me out of my seat? There were other open seats right across the aisle from me! But he didn’t sit there, because there were a couple of fat black ladies sitting next to those vacant seats, and they were spilling over slightly into the seats next to them. This peen-head was so racist and stupid that he was afraid to ask the ladies to skooch over a little bit to make room for him to sit down. He was afraid that they’d beat him up, or whatever it is that rich white guys are afraid that black women will do to them. And you know what? They probably could have. Hell, I probably could have popped him a good one in the jaw. His pompous, misogynistic view of the situation definitely would not have allowed him to expect me to stand up and hit him. It would have caught him completely off guard, and it certainly would have made me feel better.

Unfortunately, my confusion and shock at the gross inappropriateness of the whole situation prevented me from thinking of any clever response to his ridiculous question. I could only reply with a question of my own: “Um, do you want to sit here?” which came out sounding as stupid as it does here, reproduced in text. The guy obviously agreed, because he laughed sarcastically, and replied, “Yes. I want to sit there,” as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. As though I should have been able to realize without any prompting that he had infinitely more entitlement to this seat than I did. Though I had failed to realize that particular “fact,” I did learn a new SEPTA rule that day: It’s just never worth it to sit in the disabled seats, no matter how unneeded they may appear to be.