The Laboratorium : I Spleen New York

There are two Metrocard machines, but only the one on the right is taking bills. Its line stretches back twenty people or more. I have quarters, so I hop behind the three confused teens in the line on the left. They're trying to got a $1.50 card. No, not a single-ride card. They want a regular card with $1.50 on it. After a minute of confused frustration at the machine's recalcitrance, they give up and wander away. I step forward and start hitting the buttons.

"Hey, there's a line!' shouts a guy to my right. I turn around. "Do you have coins?" I ask him. "Go ahead." I step aside and wave him in front of me. He doesn't move; neither does anyone else waiting in theline. After a few monents of this madness, I turn back to the machine, feed it my quarters, take my single-ride card, and go on my merry way.

His combination of voluntary inconvenience with untethered anger strikes me as being distinctive to New York.