#2 Why I Love My iPod

Okay, so let's flashback a few days. It's December 23rd, and I've got plans to go see some friends. This requires me taking the subway and the MetroNorth. It's maybe 4 o'clock and I get on the 6 train. It's not too crowded, there are some people there, but I have a place to sit, and there's an empty spot next to me. One stop goes by, and just as the train is pulling up and the doors are about to open, I notice a fight going down right in front of the subway doors closest to me. Two men are about to get on the train, but before doing this, they are screaming at each other. Both look like they could be regulars on "Jersey Shore," in fact, if I turn on my T.V. next week and see them, I won't be surprised.
Alright, so they're fighting before my very eyes, I can't tell what it's about. All I know is that they are screaming and cursing, and the part of me that went to go see "The Princess and the Frog" two weeks ago is disapproving and a little bit scared. The fight is so severe that the smaller of the two men makes a choice to go enter a different subway car, whereas the bigger, scarier man, walks into the car I'm in. He still looks angry, and he mumbles something that I'm sure would get bleeped out if aired on national television.
Just my luck, he comes and sits in the seat right next to me. When he sits, though, he seems pretty calm, like maybe he's recovering. He then lets out one last scary exclamation that I can't really make out, but the last time I heard something similar was at the Bronx zoo during a gorilla fight.

This whole time I've had my headphones in, my iPod was on shuffle. A song I hate came on (it shall remain unnamed), and so I quickly took the iPod out to change the song. I press "next", and the next song that comes on just happens to be "Edelweiss" from The Sound of Music. Now, when you change songs on an iPod, usually the album art comes up. My iPod has a big, bright screen, which displayed a picture of Julie Andrews and seven happy children running through the fields, and apparently this album art caught my angry, scary, large friend's eye. I catch him looking closely at my iPod, and the part of me that's not politically correct (sorry, mom and dad), was pretty sure he was going to steal it. He's really gazing at my iPod, and I can't help but kind of look up at him. He looks straight back at me and I decide it's time to look at my shoes. Yes, that's the best way to go about doing this.

I hear him clear his throat, and at this point, I've decided that I may just surreptitiously switch cars. By the way, I didn't mention that this man smells like cigarettes, hair gel, and crying babies.

"Excuse me," I hear him say (I always keep the music on my iPod on a low volume, because I don't like it when people can hear what I'm listening to. If I wanted them to do that, I'd carry a boombox on my shoulders). Now, I didn't think he was talking to me. I thought he was maybe addressing the whole train. Then he nudges me and I look straight up at him.

"I'm not gay or anything, but that's a beautiful song."

I kid you not. This man went out of his way to tell me that he, too, likes the Sound of Music (and that he's not gay).

Good times, scary man, good times.