I’m Hearing Voices

For the most part, I am a bus commuter. My Mom lives out in Brooklyn, though, and some days I need to head in that direction instead of across the Hudson River to New Jersey. I’m no stranger to the subways having grown up in New York and riding them to work for the first half of my adult life. I ride them infrequently enough now that I can be surprised.

The other night I boarded an F train at West 4^th Street. I was pleased that it was a spanking new train with those cool signs that tell you what station you are arriving at, what stations are coming up, and what time it is. What surprised me though were the automated announcements. It was a long standing joke in New York that the announcements were totally incomprehensible. Either it was a conducter with an accent that you could spread on a bagel or electronic noise so horrendous that you would be tempted to stick newspaper in your ears. These announcements were crisp, clear, in generically accented English, and most peculiar of all in both male and female voices.

Here’s what I found fascinating. The female voice announced the stops but the male voice commanded us to “Watch the closing doors!” Is it that we’ll believe a woman when she tells us where we are and obey a man when he tells us to move? We could probably write treatises on the subject but that’s my take.