Amtrak TB

Maybe it was wrong of me. I am normally a fairly empathetic human being. However, the last month of my mom being actually deathly ill has drained me, and my reserve of general human kindness I use when dealing with strangers is low.
So torturing the man next to me on the train was not only justified, but completely inevitable.

I was taking the train from Albany to NYC. I have been on this route a bazillion times. There were seats all around me completely open and this jackass asks if anyone is sitting with me. Not for Nothin, but I have been riding trains since I was 3 years old and there is this unwritten law that says if there are free seats around with no one in them, you take them first before you sit with someone. Amtrak is one of the last forms of freedom mass travel left on the planet. No assigned seats in coach class. In this day and age, nobody wants to deal with the all the politeness and blah blah of sitting with a stranger if they don't have to. Also, there is the added benefit that at anytime, Amtrak could go belly up because no one rides the train anymore. This allows the freedom of stretching out, taking up 2 seats and working on your computer or catching some zzzzs. 2 seats for the price of one! That's the only reason to ride Amtrak!
Don't get me wrong, sometimes the train is packed and you have to share. I am guilty of the fake sleep...you know...when you lay down and pretend you are asleep and take advantage of the fact that people just don't want to deal with people anymore so they just keep looking for another open seat, walking by you instead of waking you. Yeah, i've done it. Don't lie, you have too.

Anyway
This guy asks to sit with me, which totally cheeses me off. I mean there are empty seats EVERWHERE!! The blow might not have been so bad if he had been remotely attractive or even my age.
Noooooooooooo
He is about 55. Kinda rich-stuck-up-acting, which makes absolutely no sense. A rich person would fly the 40minutes to NYC as opposed to the 3 hour ride on the train. And of course rich people hate mingling with the lower classes - which Amtrak caters to. Well poorer people and people with serious drug habits who don't wanna flush their stash before they travel.
So yeah he's not pretty.
I am so insensed by the fact that he is sitting with me when he could literally sit ANYWHERE. I could have said "Wouldn't you like to sit all by yourself over there, sir?" or "Those 2 seats are free" or even "BEAT IT!!" but in my old age I have become fearful of confrontation and have resorted to using passive aggressive methods of dealing with some issues. So I sighed, mumbled something unintelligible and let him by. And then, just to be evil, I started coughing.
I began slowly. I am just getting over a real cold so it sounded authentic. He slipped passed me to the window seat. I cough more, and louder. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him looking at me - surely to asses the seriousness of my tuberculosis and to figure out whether or not the innoculation he had back in 1956 was any good still.
More coughing.
I could feel him recoiling from me. It was fantastic! He wanted to get up and move, but to do that would not only be rude, but would be admitting defeat. He was hoping I would stop.
I stop.
Then I start up again. My coughing having actually brought up a little gift from my lungs which makes it sound like a productive expectorating hack. PERFECT
My friend just presses himself up against the window.
It was terribly fun.
He completely regretted his decision to sit with me.
Then
The Tipper.
I leaned over, touched his arm and asked what time the train was expected to arrive in Penn Central. ( Think the movie "Ghost" where Patrick Swayze and his hot best friend -well before he had Patrick Swayze killed for those bank numbers- are riding in an elevator and they start a fake conversation about some rash his friend has that is terribly contagious and all the people in the elevator freak out as he touched them and coughed)
My inner child was rolling around, laughing.
I was mildly disappointed by his reaction to my touch. I wanted him to jump or startle. He just told me the time. By this time the train had really filled up and there was no where for him to go anyway. My point was made and I can never seem to maintain my anger at anyone for very long. Also the realization that I could have never kept up that act for the entire ride settled in because I have Suduko puzzles waiting for me as well as my U2 albums to listen to. I slowed up the coughing and sniffling, popped a cough drop and started to write all this down.

He stared out the window to look at the Hudson River and the Catskill Mountains. Beautiful sight. One of my favorites in all the world, and on a late October afternoon there is nothing like it. I freed my seat partner from the visions of a tubercular death and decided to point out out my childhood home as it whizzed past.

but every once in awhile, I coughed, just to save face.