the country mouse and the city mouse

When we're young, we all hear some variant of that familiar tale of the country person and the city person. For me, it was the country mouse and the city mouse. Longing for excitement, the country mouse decides to spend a day in the big city. The city mouse, likewise, heads into the country for a peaceful day of relaxation outside of the daily bustle.

I don't really remember what happens. I think a hawk tries to eat the city mouse. A carriage probably almost runs over the country mouse. At the end, both return to their respective dwellings and heave little mouse-sighs of relief.

In short, the lesson the reader learns is this: Stay where you are.

After a period of about 9 short months, I think I may now be a bona fide City Mouse.

I almost lost my mind on the train yesterday.

I thought getting a Good Seat just meant window seat. I like to look out the window, that's it. I don't need to be anywhere in particular - the front of the train or the back, the left side or right. Just give me a window, and I will have a good seat. Or so I thought... before I met the guy behind me.

Strictly speaking, we didn't actually meet. I don't know his name. So let's call him Big Fat iPod Guy.

The trip started out fine--I didn't even notice Big Fat iPod Guy. I did notice Happy Redhead Guy, who immediately shoved a Diet Coke in front of my face. "Want a pop?" he asked. "Oh," I said, "No thanks."

"Are you sure?" He held it ever closer.

But Happy Redhead Guy was fine with me, because after he downed two bags of Peanut M&Ms and his "pop" (Is my rural-Midwestern sensibility really so destroyed that the word "pop" makes me squirm?), he and his trusty copy of "Awakening the Buddha Within" hit the snack car.

And at least he offered some of his nutritive stash, which falls into the category of Socially Acceptable. Big Fat iPod Guy, well... he didn't offer anything, nor did he disappear quite so conveniently. His presence became known to me just a few pages into the book I was reading. It became known because he sang. If that's what you want to call it. I prefer "caterwauled".

This sort of thing is amusing. For 5 minutes. After an hour, it's Really Annoying. Two hours in, you're really starting to feel unhinged. After three hours, you're ready to gauge out your eyes. You're envisioning all kinds of ways to hurt BFiPG. You see yourself with a lead pipe, Clue-style, and you hear the satisfying noise it elicits as it makes contact with his head. But that's not enough. You want to make him sorry. Really sorry.

As the four-hour mark came and went, I found myself curled in the fetal position, taking over where HRG would have been sitting, clenching my teeth.

A more seasoned City Mouse might have leaned over and politely--no, impolitely--asked BFiPG to discontinue his musical interpretations of Nas and P. Diddy. I, however, am fiercely non-confrontational. BFiPG will drive me crazy, but he will do so in my own mind. I will die resisting the need to make him stop. So I almost do. I curl fetally, sweating and clutching the opposite sides of my shirt, needing to hurt him and not letting myself.

Every so often, BFiPG would raise my hopes cruelly by stopping. He would let seconds, sometimes even minutes slip by untainted. Then he would start again. "I have to tell yooo-oo-oou, when you wear that, it turns me oonnn, it turns me oonnnnn."

It was the worst R&B ever. Or maybe it was just typical R&B.

When the train finally made it to Battle Creek, an hour and a half late, after several stops on the tracks for every conceivable reason, I felt like I'd never undergone such torture.

As a City Mouse, you forget that sometimes you have to be stuck in situations you cannot flee from. The city makes fleeing an endlessly available opportunity. The El runs quickly, and stops somewhere new every few minutes. People are coming, going, leaving, getting on. The longest bus ride is half an hour long.

Home sweet home.