I’m on the Blue Line heading to a remote stop just south of the airport; “as far as this train goes.” It’s noon and I’m starving. There’s a sandwich in my bag, but I hate eating on the train for a few reasons, the most important being the noxious smells of the subway cars.

I’ve seen people place a Styrofoam container of food on the seat in front of them and procede to dine, hunched over in earnest, or perhaps driven by necessity of getting food into their mouths on a jolting train tide. They tend to eat with their eyes closed. Maybe they are pretending they are somewhere else after all, an outdoor café, a loved one’s kitchen.

The second- hand smell of food coupled with those unmistakable odors we associate with subways and subway cars can be a lethal mix, and I can only assume that most of my fellow commuters agree with me. So, I silently count the stops to that distant suburb, occasionally digging into my bag for a surrepticious handful of trail mix. I tell myself that there are two kinds of people: those who will eat anywhere undaunted and those of us who cling to our dignity by adamantly refusing to chow down on the Pee Train.