A man dressed in full subway construction worker gear sits down two seats away from me, with a woman seated in between us, and pulls out a Galaxy Note or some such phone of ridiculous size. He starts up a video player but doesn’t plug-in any headphones. We’re in a subway stop with a train loudly leaving the station. He tries to turn up the volume but it’s already at the max. I guess as soon as this train leaves, we’re all watching this movie.
I glance over, something is walking in the woods. My mind immediately goes to Lord of the Rings. Is this man trying to watch a two-hour long movie in bits and pieces aloud in subway stations?
I get a closer look. It’s not people walking around in the woods—or hobbits—it’s monkeys. The man laughs under his breath, “Heh, they’re just like humans.”
The woman who sits between the man and I says, confused, “I thought they were gonna talk but I guess they’re just gesturing.”
The construction worker says, “It’s, Planet of the Apes.” (Though I think he meant one of the newer ones, which are more specifically, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes but I doubt that distinction was necessary.)
Then the women replies, “I’ve never seen it.”
Well, I haven’t seen Rise/Dawn of the Planet of the Apes either but I’ve sure heard of one of the most famous movie franchises ever. They’ve made four of them, one like fifty years ago and three more this millennium. There’s no excuse for being unaware of this movie.
Now I don’t know who is annoying me more, the guy making me listen to a Planet of the Apes movie while I wait for my train to arrive or the woman who has probably never heard of Star Wars.
