The next train, they announced, would be a five-car train. With the slow, deliberate motion of someone receiving stage direction, I tucked a finger in my book* and sauntered up the platform with a firm, self-congratulatory, world-wise step that said, “Unlike the rest of you public transportation tourists, I know the difference between a five-car train and a ten-car train, and I alter my boarding strategy accordingly.” That said, “I’ve lived in this city a whole seven years, and how long have you been here?” That said, “I’m a girl who pays keen attention to instructions, learns from experience, and never has to rush.” It managed to say all those things in spite of my ridiculous five-inch bright-orange suede-and-neoprene platforms that may as well have been coffee-can stilts, and that by comparison made every other person within a five-mile radius a genius in practicality.

* Please stop looking at my tits. Eye contact!