Score for Madison Avenue

<-- Subway passengers with their ams in straphanger position

The subway has been a good bit more packed this week (perhaps due to the holidays?), which is always compounded by train problems. Yesterday, one of the doors on the F train failed to close, so they took the car out of service. As we were stalled, waiting for them to come to a decision, I found myself increasingly pressed up against other people as new people entered the train. (fools!) Then, when they finally decided that the door was definitively broken, they had us cross the platform to board the A train, where it was twice as crowded.

Only one thought kept me sane: Thank GOD almost everyone on the train was clean. I looked around me and noticed that most of us on the train had the same level of cleanliness, which is kind of shocking. We didn’t collectively smell that bad, even when making full-body contact. Why? It has to be Madison Avenue advertising. One thing our culture does very well is teach us to be clean. Heck if we’re creating super-germs due to our cleanliness. Not having to smell horrific B.O. is worth every cost.