i had one of those frustrating public transportation nites last nite… first, i arrived far too late via airport after way too much time traveling. upon arrival, i caught the last public subway back towards my apartment. i was struggling with 6 bags but only one person offered to help but didn’t speak enough english to understand that yes, i did want his help. regardless, all winded, i hopped on the last leg of my 5 exchage subway tracking. i sat besides a group of four – 2 very girlie 20something girls and their male companions (equally gender typical). across from me was a wide variety of other 20somethings who were probably students at mit, based purely on stereotypes. this was a mixture of men and women.

i chuckled with the students and they smiled back.. we sorta had a “hello” eye level of public transit. the four next to me didn’t even look at me or the others as they were caught in their own conversation. as the subway got rolling, all but the four sat quietly but slowly we couldn’t ignore the conversation that was happening. one girl was VERY loudly telling the story of a person she encountered where she could not tell if “it” was a man or a woman. drunkenly, she was loudly exclaiming how much this bothered her and how she was trying to determine if this “it” had a bra on. she was talking about going up to the “it” and reaching out to “it’s” shoulder to pat “it” to find if there was a bra there (she kept saying “it” with a harsh disgusted tone). the people across from me and i were obviously dumbfounded by this conversation but none of the four noticed us. they kept going!! finally, i tapped the girl on the shoulder and asked “why does it matter if the person is a boy or a girl?” all flustered she said that it didn’t but that she just wanted to tell a funny story. her female companion said that this was not the important part but they hadn’t gotten to it yet. the talker said “geez, sorry to start a controversy” and then continued the story!!!!! i was dumbfounded but my stop had arrived and i had to get off.