Wednesday, 28 May 2003 | Traffic

There's a highway with, say, two lanes going the same direction, and there are two cars in front of you going exactly the same speed, which would be fine, if you didn't consider that speed too slow. But you do, and you can't get around them. They don't seem to care (or, more likely?, they don't seem to notice) that you want to politely slide past them, without having to honk or flash your lights, because that would be obnoxious of you. Instead you edge closer and sigh and curse them under your breath as your wonder intensifies: how is it possible that they not notice?

Imagine that happening with people instead of cars. With people, there aren't any defined lanes to prevent you from passing, but there's a certain amount of space on the sidewalk, or, worse, on the subway platform. Of course you don't nudge the person in front of you or even sigh out loud, because that would be rude. Instead, you try to slip between the wall of walkers and the yellow warning stripe on the edge of the platform, and, for a second, you wonder why one of the other strangers around you doesn't just push you into the electric chasm. Maybe you're getting on someone's nerves, too, and what's to stop them from doing it? There are no doubt lots of crazy people nearby at any given moment.

By the time you finish that thought, you're past the dangerous part of the maneuver and you didn't get pushed, and, anyway, one time you watched a friend of yours casually jump into the subway path just to retrieve the paper from a Chinese fortune cookie he'd dropped down there, which oddly comforts you.

You notice, then, that you're stuck behind someone else.