With deepest apologies to those readers named Velma or Cletus.

I have the fortune of living in one of the most trafficked cities on the East Coast. Each year, millions visit the city I call home, boarding open-air tour trams en masse with visors cocked close to 90 degrees. Denying the warnings of tram transportation experts the world round, children hang like monkeys from these people movers, pointing excitedly to city-zens carrying out the most mundane of everyday errands. Hauling groceries while perspiring excessively is apparently an extremely foreign activity, evidenced by the fact that more than once an eager visitor has snapped a photo of me taking my cat litter, toilet paper, and hot dogs back to my car. Who knew I looked so thoroughly exotic in my sweatpants, licking Dorito dust from my hands in the Safeway parking lot?

Other than the increase in traffic during the summertime, the general distraction and occasional pileup caused by the amphibious tour bus shaped like a duck, and the defiant refusal of many to move to the right while standing on the Metro escalator, tourists are a pleasure. Their genuine passion for your city reminds you to take a closer look at the monuments and moneymakers that have become a part of the everyday. There are however, those visitors who make you wish that a written test was required for entrance into the city. And, whether it be on public transportation or at my favorite restaurant, these kittens usually end up right next to me.

Inappropriate Couple I sat down behind me on a brutally hot day in July. The air-conditioned Metro car provided relief for professionals on lunch breaks and museum-goers alike. Stretching my toes out in my sandals, pulling my hot skin off the vinyl seat, and grinning, I lowered my head to rest the twenty minutes until my final stop.

They soon broke the silence.

Inappropriate Couple Female (we’ll call her Velma) began to mimic the automated Metro voice alerting passengers to station changes as well as the opening and closing of the doors. And she did so loudly. And every time we stopped and started. Inappropriate Couple Man (who shall heretofore be referred to as Cletus) then interjected such choice, grade A phrases such as “git your butt off” to fellow passengers, while the couple snort-giggled like big betters at the dog track.

What had brought this on? Had this twosome not just come from a quiet, enjoyable day touring the monuments, the Mall, the tee-shirt shop at the Hard Rock Café? Maybe Cletus’ excessively robust and tight camera strap was to blame; was it cutting off his circulation, leaving him lightheaded and unaware of his actions? Their enthusiasm for this display stopped just shy of n*ked chest bumping in front of the Brownie troop in our Metro car.

Ah, but if only they had stopped there. Cletus had most likely been preparing the grand finale since deciphering the primary-colored Metro map that morning. When Velma would state the name of their Metro stop, Ballston (and she did so as often as the conversation would allow), the fully denim-clad Cletus would query, “honey, did you say ball sack?” Wow, Cletus. I’m guessing jokes like this one usually kill at the bowling alley bar.

This, my friends, was the epitome of crickets. Commuters buried their faces in books and some riders stared at their reflections uncomfortably in the darkened windows. I quickly lost that grin on my face.

I also seriously contemplated hitting him over the head with his fanny pack. “Ball sack?” This was a 40-something-year-old man out for the day with his wife, in a quiet subway car with legislators, mothers, children, and perhaps worst of all, other tourists. It saddened me to think that an international visitor with even a basic grasp of English slang might have heard him. I’d rather have people think that we’re all McDonald’s gluttons or the Levi-wearing Madonna worshippers (which of course I am) than the abrasive and loud performers before them.

Why can’t the astronaut food-eating kids ever be on my bus? What about the lovingly embarrassing Dads wearing baseball caps emblazoned with bedazzled American flags? (And come on, who doesn’t love the elderly couple in FBI his and her tees – yes! even when they walk in front of your car at .0068 mph on the green light?) Where are those people who remember that we represent more than just ourselves when we’re out exploring our world?

Make your Mom, your kids, your local Brownie troop – or hell – just someone behind you on the Metro proud.

Or be prepared to be smacked with your own fanny pack.