The Subway brings out the absolute worst in me. It turns me into an animal, frothing at the mouth, growling inside, judging people, searching out tell-tale signs of someone getting ready to vacate a seat. Survival of the fittest reigns supreme on the subway. God may have intended the meek to inherit the earth, but they sure as hell will never get a seat on the F train at 8:30 Monday morning.

I stand -- tense -- eyeing the old Asian guy wearing huge reading glasses who sits before me, newspaper in hand. He folds the paper up (a sure sign he's going to be getting off soon) -- puts it in his bag and looks out the window to see what stop we're at. Caroll Street. Could he possibly be getting off at Caroll Street? No one gets off at Caroll Street at 8:30 in the morning. They only get on. False alarm. My eyes dart to the girl who appears next to me. We hold on to the same pole as the train heads on the Bergen Street. The old guy fidgets in his seat. Takes off his magnifying glasses and exchanges them with smaller, nearsighted glasses. He blinks. The girl and I tense. She too knows that he's going to get up soon. She knows it and she's going to make a break for the seat. I'll kill her! I've been standing here longer! Who does she think she is with her badly bleached hair and her platform boots?!? I glare into the middle distance, stomach muscles tight. That's my seat, Bitch.

Though I'm standing directly in front of the old man, I'm not in the prime spot for snatching seats. I've come to realize, in my ten months of commuting, that the best place to be is in the exact middle between two doors, where the two back to back seats are. That way when we hit Jay Street/Borough Hall and everyone files out I can move with the flow of people into a recently vacated seat.

Bergen Street. The man cranes his neck -- Get off now you old fool! He doesn't hear my telepathic cry. The animosity filled air crackles between me and the bleached one as we both size up the old guy. "Ding-dong Stan clear da closin' daws" and off we go again. I hate locals. But the F train is the only train that goes through my neighborhood. We enter the Jay Street station. This is where the big rush is. The Brooklyn Courts are street side here -- lots of people get on and off. It's the last chance. If I don't get a seat now I'll be standing till I get to work.

The train stops. The doors grind open. And then: mass confusion. I get caught in an undertow of humanity -- all leaving to go to work or transfer for the express train across the platform. I fight violently against the flow -- a salmon in a river of business suits. The old man has vanished from my sight. But so has everyone else that was sitting on that block of seats. They're still free -- I maneuver myself -- do a quick turn -- then -- ahhhhhhh....Nothing feels quite so exhilarating as an orange plastic F train seat under your expectant butt. The girl -- the enemy -- ends up right next to me a moment later. There is no competition now. We are the lucky ones -- comrades on plastic thrones -- presiding over the standing masses. Neither one of us got the old man's seat. Mainly because he was still sitting there. Such is life.