This morning as I was going through the turnstiles, entering the subway, I noticed the little digital display read “No Tokens.” I must have read this about 1000 times before today. But for some reason, this morning, I decided to think about it for a minute. Why in the world does the MTA feel like they still have to inform riders that the turnstiles no longer accept tokens? People haven’t been able to use Tokens in the subway since 2003. Is the MTA afraid that someone is going to awake from a coma and try to get on the subway with a token, then sue when they can’t because they didn’t realize that tokens were no longer used?

Another observation/pet peeve, witnessed this morning, was the guy walking along in front of me chatting it up on his phone. With the “hands free” piece installed, he held the microphone portion right in front of his mouth. How long have cell phones been around now? Has that poor sap still not figured out that the mic on his hands-free wire will pick up noises on the other side of the street, let alone the words coming out of his mouth, if he lets it dangle (like it is designed to do) 6 inches from his face? Doesn’t he realize that by holding that thing against his bottom lip, he is not only muffling his words, but probably blowing out the eardrums of the person on the other end? Also, if you are going to go through the trouble of holding something next to your face, why use “hands free” at all? Doesn’t it kind of defeat the purpose?

Maybe I’m totally missing a key factor in both of these issues, that is preventing me from understanding the logic. Can someone explain it to me?