The Sermon on the Train

It was 8:45 p.m. on a hot summer Friday; no one was going to fault the man for indulging in a nice cold adult beverage on the ride home from a long day at the office.  It was the unrelenting sermon, that seemed to grow louder and more audacious with each gulp, which drew the unified ire of the night commute crowd. 

A salesman’s work is never done.  Each new person is a potential client.  Crowds are even better.  But it’s the captive audience; the crowds trapped with no hope of escape that are best. 

This noticeably tipsy yet tenacious salesman continued to discuss wondrous things with yet untold potential derived from next level science and technology.  He was, of course, talking about electronic cigarettes. 

“Not only are they less of a burden on your lungs but the truly sensational part of the e-cig lies in the fact that you can smoke them literally anywhere.” 

This was it, the big reveal.  The disheveled peddler pulled the faux cigarette out of his pocket and inhaled deeply.  A little red light glowed at the tip, a brilliant metaphor for the unbridled anger of the pregnant lady careening towards him.  It was an unstoppable force meets an inebriated object and there I was without any popcorn.

This startled the salesman as he had closed his eyes during the drag and when he opened them to exhale she was in his face.  The look of astonishment was delayed for about 8 or 9 seconds as neurons, misdirected by the booze, completed their journey but when it hit even the unstoppable pregnant force herself had to stifle a laugh. 

The assault began.  A flurry of valid points sprung from the woman’s mouth like the dogs of war.

“What do you think you’re doing? There are people on this train who don’t want to deal with your disgusting habit!  It’s bad enough we have to listen to your drunken babbling when all we want is a little peace and quiet on our way home!  Now put that thing back in your pocket before I put it somewhere else!”  Perfection.

The man stared blankly at the woman, his inner struggle displayed for all to see as if his mind had erected a billboard directly on his face.  He was going to do it, and who am I kidding, we all wanted him to do it.  The look on his face told me he knew better but the alcohol inside nudged him closer towards it until finally the words, “Lady, you’re allowed to smoke these wherever you want,” sheepishly fell from his mouth. 

He knew he was wrong, she certainly knew he was wrong, to everyone else in the car, though, it felt so right. 

In the swiftest movement I’ve ever seen from a woman so far pregnant the e-cig had disappeared.  I couldn’t be sure if she had popped it all the way into his mouth or confiscated it but one thing was for sure, this man did not sell a single one of those wondrous gifts of modern science on that train.  With the duty to her unborn child fulfilled the unstoppable force reclaimed her seat on the wonderfully mind-numbing monotony that is the daily commute.