On the Morning Train

My peace on the morning train was interrupted by five rowdy teenagers. One boy grabbed an umbrella away from a girl and she retaliated by crumpling up pages of her AM NY newspaper into balls and throwing them at him. The paper rolled off the boy, littering the floor of the subway car, but the kids didn't seem to care. They also didn't seem to care that their hi-jinks and rough-housing was annoying to the rest of us quiet commuters. Then the girl pulled a package of candy from her bag, ate it up, and threw the wrapper on the floor. I was just beginning to wonder about the poor soul that has to pick up after such thoughtless people when, as the subway train came to a stop, I noticed a gentleman exit the train. But before he got out of the car, he bent over and picked up the trashed newspaper balls. On his way out of the subway station he threw them into a garbage can. It's a wondrous thing to live in a world with such a mixture of selfishness and selflessness all in one place.