Backpacks

The backpack is a dangerous thing in the wrong hands. Inconsiderate idiots must forget they have these bulky appendages strapped to their backs when jostling for position in our overcrowded buses and metro cars. They’ll swing it around completely oblivious to their shoving fellow riders about and sometimes even whacking the seated passengers in the head.

It’s basic common courtesy; when boarding crowded public transportation, take the gall darn bag off your back. Even the STM (Sardine transport de Montréal) is aware of this nonsense - since they created the problem to begin with, with too few buses/metros – as shown by their sparsely posted ineffectual dos/don’ts posters on the matter. Sadly, the only thing that does work against these backpack-laden boors is to shove them right back.

And another thing, why the hell are kids lugging their weight in books and stuff in these backpacks. It seems down right cruel for the little children to be subjected to this hard labour and it’s hard to imagine them reading, eating or needing that much of anything in a given day. As for any physical benefits derived from the lifting and the hauling, the poor tots are future chiropractic patients along with their high-healed mothers and beer-bellied fathers.

Have a hoot, travel light