Kindness is sweeping the city

I got on the L train the other morning and if you don’t live in New York, or you do and for some annoying reason don’t take the subway (I hate you) then I’ll tell you this first. Subway drivers or conductors or whatever you call them, only make announcements if you’re on an old train that doesn’t have the white lady automated GPS-sounding voice to announce the stops, or there’s a some sort of “service interruption” BS and you have to take 5 trains to get from Union Square to 23rd street. So you can imagine everyone’s surprise Monday morning when we heard:

“Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I’m glad to see everyone looks well-rested and ready for the day…”

Uuuuh, what? In 5 ½ years I’ve never heard a subway driver say anything other than the name of a street or the word “delay.” Everyone went through this series of facial expressions: usual turn-off-my-iPod listening face, to did-he-really-just-say-that confusion face, to (the rarely seen) actually smiling and making eye contact with other subway passengers. Like, “ha, that’s weird, huh!” kind of camaraderie. He just wanted to tell us that the L trains were behind so our train wouldn’t stop until Union Square, but he topped himself and signed off with “please be kind to your fellow passengers and I hope everyone has a wonderful day.” I felt better about the state of the world all the way from Lorimer to 8th Avenue.

I only bring that up because this morning, the sanitation worker—one of the ones that clean the streets, not the ones on the trucks, I don’t know what the title of that job is—who I see almost every day on the block between the subway and my office, was particularly upbeat this morning and exchanged his usual “hello” with “what a beautiful day!” I don’t know if everyone’s on uppers or what the deal is, but I like it. Everyone should just be nice. At least to strangers who haven’t done anything to piss you off yet. Unless they're dressed badly or stink or something, you can't put up with that.


Look how nice these people are to each other. (Thanks, Reg) Maybe kindness is sweeping Dallas, too. It's a nationwide phenomenon. I'm not going to post the video, because...ew.