( *_* )

Finally, I said, “Excuse me,” tapped my index finger to my earlobe, pointed to their headphones, and pantomimed, “Can you turn it down, please?”

“Go sit somewhere else,” one of the boys said.

“You can hear it through the whole car,” I said. Nothing.

Normally a resolute coward when it comes to subway confrontations, I summoned my inner Howard Beale. I inched closer and began reading aloud from the newspaper. And I mean aloud.

“Voyage of a girl moored in Brooklyn,” I read. “For Berlin, a modern makeover,” I continued…