Please Stop Wearing Your Backpack While Riding the MBTA

Photo by Garrett Quinn

People who wear backpacks on the MBTA are history’s greatest monsters, and right now, with college back in session, there are more of these clueless barbarians occupying precious space on our creaky public transportation system than at any other time in the calendar year.

They board like jackals at Kenmore and Park Street, taking out fellow passengers with their overstuffed backpacks in a way that reminds one of Godzilla’s tail taking out an innocent Tokyo skyscraper. They are oblivious to the world around them with headphones in their ears and their eyes glued to Snapchat on their smartphones.

While others pile into the packed trolley like sardines, it does not appear to enter their soon-to-be-shaped minds that “Hey, maybe I should take off this stupid backpack and put in on the ground between my legs for the benefit of those around me.”

Nope!

Instead, they just stand there, dressed as if they just fell out of bed, with their hand on the pole, taking up too much space with their backpack as we rumble through the tunnels underneath the streets of Boston. The ones without their minds focused on a shiny screen in front of them talk loudly about how they’re going to get “so wasted” at the party tomorrow night. Others prattle on about their wild summer abroad escapes in Europe that involved an endless array of festivals and no-strings-attached hook-ups.

It’s unclear if they know other people can hear them talk. Those who can unfortunately hear them probably don’t care about all the drugs they did at the Electric Daisy Carnival or their service project in farawayland that they did out of the kindness of their heart.

While all of this is going on, their backpacks are still there, protruding into public space that could be occupied by another passenger.

I am more than willing to chalk up their behavior to being dumb kids from suburban Flyover America where they don’t have public transportation, and everyone drives to EVERYTHING because mid-20th-century urban planners were idiots…but come on. Can they not see the people around them? Do they not understand how inconsiderate it is to leave that turtle shell-like piece of luggage on their backs?

More importantly, don’t they get tired of lugging all that stuff around all time? It’s probably a good idea to put the thing down and give the ol’ vertebrae a rest, anyway.

College freshmen are the worst.