I can’t even imagine how much those new and appallingly useless electronic signs at Downtown Crossing must have cost. Why not just put up an old-fashioned sign that reads: “No smoking.” Not that everybody doesn’t already know smoking’s prohibited. I mean, who doesn’t know that? And you probably can’t read if you don’t, anyway. And if you’re smoking down there and you do know, what good’s it do to have a sign flashing you’re not supposed to? It encourages it, is what it does. And why not flash it in Portuguese and Hindi and Cajun and Farsi?

And what else does the flashing sign say? “For info go to www.mbta.com.” Oh, thanks. Here’s an informative sign that very urgently tells you to go elsewhere for information.

And I’m absolutely sure no useful information will ever be conveyed by this flashy signage. But whatever.

Yesterday I was at Downtown Crossing for the evening rush hour. When I got to the platform, it was packed. And at least three trains came in the opposite direction, so, of course, when finally one lumbered in on my side of the tracks, it was obnoxiously crammed full of commuters. I decided to wait for the next, but you know how people are on Friday afternoon, wanting to get home and all. They were acting crazy. There was one creep on the platform with a briefcase shouting into the car: “move! Move your fat asses! You could get four more bodies in there! Move it!” And he was serious. I mean, he wanted to go home. And I can understand it, but come on.

There’s definitely a hierarchy of evils here, and making a spectacle of yourself in public is higher on the list of sins than not scrunching in sufficiently to allow someone who is making a spectacle of himself onboard. But the sense that entitlement trumps physics was also richly displayed in the incident. Several people simply would not allow the train to leave, although they could not get all the way in. I mean you’d think this was the Fall of Saigon, or something. Wait two freakin minutes, and there will be another train. What’s the emergency?

When finally the train was able to pull out, the wingnut who’d been making a scene, ran along the yellow line, knocking on the window at the passengers who had not heeded his orders to get their attention so he could give them all the finger. And the thing of it is, this freak was with two colleagues. Can you imagine working with somebody like that? I wonder what business they were in. They all three were middle-aged schlubs with briefcases, in their Dockers for dress-down Friday.

None of this excuses the irregularity of trains at rush hour, mind you. There is definitely malicious intent involved on the part of the T. I mean, one last slap in the face on a Friday just to show you who’s who and what’s what, right? But have a little dignity, people. Acting desperate only encourages them, after all.

As expected, not long after another train came, and it wasn’t nearly as packed. It was crowded, yes, but then it was rush hour on a Friday. You’re not gonna have the train to yourself. One thing that bugged me instantly when I got on—and I will admit up front it’s probably just me—was this tall dude who had a hand-held DVD player about the size of a book he was watching. Why does this bother me? I mean, it was about the shape and size of a book, and people reading books on the T definitely don’t bug me, so why should someone watching a DVD with headphones?

I don’t know, maybe it’s that 64% of twelfth graders are below proficient in reading. 26% are below basic. And according to Richard Restak, neuropsychiatrist and clinical professor of neurology at George Washington University Medical Center, author of Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot: Unleashing Your Brain’s Potential, a kind of user’s guide to your brain, watching TV really does turn your brain to mush. Alzheimer’s has been linked in studies to excessive time spent in passive pursuits, like watching TV. In fact, one particularly rigorous study compared seniors with and without Alzheimer’s, and found that “the only single activity in which Alzheimer’s patients on average significantly outperformed their counterparts was watching television.” Maybe someday it will be an Olympic sport, too, just like everything else. Links between too much TV and obesity? Aggression? ADHD?

But then, why should I care whose brain turns to mush in the end? For me, there’s something else to it. It’s that disconnect from reality. More than that, it’s a defiant disconnect. A repudiation of shared reality, of the concept of “here” and of “now” in which I have tremendous faith.

There’s such a wealth of stimulating reading out there, too. At the same time this dude was watching his DVD, I spied this chapter heading in a course packet the guy next to me was reading: “Situations and Circumstances Conducive to Sexual Intimacy.”

I’m just saying, reading can be informative and fun!