Now, what would your mother say, or, when you think no one is watching...

Tonight, I was riding a Trax train in Downtown Salt Lake City, staring out the window and contemplating the meaning of life and various other items needless to be mentioned, I saw the reflection in the glass of the twenty-something man sitting just down from me. Oh, but this man wasn't simply sitting. As I saw him, he had no idea I was watching, so he buried his face in a bent arm and committed the most horrific faux pas known to man; he shoved his unoccupied pointer finger up his nostril to relieve his schnoz of some built up mucus. In layman's terms, he picked his nose. But wait; he didn't stop there. Instead of removing his finger from his nose and wiping the residue on a gently used tissue or handkerchief, the man turned his hand palm-side-up, made a fist with all his fingers but the offending forefinger and proceeded to examine his findings. Apparently, there was something extremely fascinating with this projectile of the proboscis, because he stared at it. He stared at the booger for what seemed to be at least twenty-seven seconds or so. After he seemingly found no more interest in the mucus flicked his fingers, sending the offending object flying through the car like a rocket until it made a crash landing on the window across from him. Since I wasn't about to get up with a tissue and clean it off, it hung there, dangling in all its glory, for the duration of our trip. We both exited the train at the same stop, so I made sure that I stayed as far away from him as humanly possible so that A) I wouldn't become infected by whatever bacteria were now thriving on the man's hand and B) I wouldn't look the man in the face and let out the great guffaw that I had been holding in. Normally, I wouldn't even think twice about someone picking his or her nose in public. In fact, it's quite a natural occurrence. However, the lingering desire this man had to examine the particulate matter in great detail disgusted me to the core. Isn't it amazing what we'll do when we think people aren't looking?

I proceeded from the Trax train to the FrontRunner to return to Ogden, hoping to have a nice relaxing ride full of quite solitude in which I could read my book. Of course, something entirely different was in store for me. It just so happened that the car with the most room, which I chose for obvious reasons, also contained an annoying throng of teenagers who shattered all social norms by yelling at the top of their lungs and being, as teenagers usually are, exceptionally annoying. These young whippersnappers spent the entire trip fighting over who ate the last M&M and participating in barbaric teenage rituals such as flirting neanderthalically with girls who couldn't be less interested and asking for their phone numbers. I had the worst time concentrating on my book, and I had to read most pages at least twice. It was a battle of wills. My will was to be the socially acceptable person who sits and endures the bedlam erupting in the train, and theirs was to be as obtusely disturbing to those around them as humanly possible. In the end, my will won, because they got off in Roy; I had one entire leg of the trip to travel quietly: what great victory.

But seriously...did these kids think that they were the only people on the train, or do they just consider themselves to be the most important life forms in the universe? One man was there, chaperoning them all, and he did absolutely nothing to thwart their narcissistic efforts. I want to know if their mothers know they act as immature as they did this evening. What would your mother say if she knew you acted like that? I urge you all to eliminate this social faux pas from your life. Conform! Be the one that talks to no one on the train, making sure not to sit too close to another human being. Keep to yourselves so I can read my book, sleep, or whatever else I choose to do in the 54 minutes we share together while learning nothing more about you, as a polite member of society should do!