Duck, Duck, Goose.

Those are the words going through my head as I consider where to sit each morning. The inner dialog goes something like this: "No, too skinny. No, too friendly. No, too girly and prone to cell phone chatter.... Oh, yes. Here's a perfect specimen. Just large and foreboding enough with a gigantic American Tourister firmly planted in the middle seat."

The strategy for a morning seat is simple: You want the largest, most unappealling person possible on the 3-seater side. That way, the two of you can sit on either end and no one will dare sit between you two.

This is a little counter-intuitive, so it took me a couple weeks to figure this out. After all, we spend our entire adult lives seeking out the most agreeable-looking people possible to sit next to. We want the ones who are unlikely to impose on us in any way. That all goes out the window the moment you start commuting. Fat and sweaty? Perfect! Asleep, drooling and taking up two seats? I'll take it! Scary and slightly twitchy with visible tatoos on the neck? Dude, we're neighbors!

A veritable cornucopia of kvetching

One of the things I've noticed about commuting is that there is an inexhaustible supply of things to complain about. It goes way beyond cell phone chatter. For example, one of my favorites is the COFFEE CUP SEAT HOG. This is the commuter who feels so attached to his cup of steaming hot coffee that he insists on placing it next to him in the empty seat, as if the cup is just a hard-working cup o' Joe trying to make an honest living. Like it's freaking Juan Valdez himself or something. In any event, the Coffee Cup Seat Hog does two things: he makes it harder for someone to claim the seat (a situation he may or may not be aware of) and he puts a hot cup of coffee in a precarious spot between two people. I often wonder exactly what would happen if the train lurched and the cup spilled? What would he say? Sorry? Exactly how do you "fix" something like this after it happens and why is this adult willing to take that risk with a complete stranger? These are the things that keep me and others on the train on edge. What happens is you end up staring at that ridiculous cup of coffee out of the corner of your eye just to make sure you can jump away from it if it topples over. It's outrageous and these people must be stopped and promptly decaffeinated.

The Jerk in the Box

I am constantly thinking of products that might help fellow commuters cope with the discomfort of ambient cell phone chatter. My newest invention is a Jerk in the Box. Basically, it's a Jack in the Box. Same metal box. Same music driven by a cranking mechanism. The difference is that the harlequin who pops up is holding a tiny cell phone to his head. It's all in the application—next time you are plagued with a chatterbox on the train, you simply whip out the old "Jerk" and crank away. Everyone will have a huge laugh at the caller's expense.

Another idea was to create a telescoping wand with a tiny cell phone on the end. When someone goes overboard on the phone, you walk over and clock him or her on the head with the fully-extended wand. Again, this relies on a bit of public humiliation.

Then, of course, there's the cell phone jammer. They're illegal here in the US, but I understand people buy them overseas and point them furtively at unsuspecting talkers. Brilliant and far more effective than my ideas. But where's the public humiliation?