3 Months of public transport obs (Very long! M, F, self)

[snzer]

Hi everyone I'm back with a lot of obs! I'm sorry this post is way too long haha but I keep obs in the notes on my phone and kept forgetting to post any for the last 3 months. I decided to split them up since I collected a lot, so I'll start with these. Then I have some from work (mostly from that one coworker....) and some more general ones too. Like I said in another post I usually get around 1 cold a month during peak cold season, and this year was the same. I think my November and January colds came from public transport since I'm 99% sure I know exactly who I caught them from but the other two from December were likely not.

I went to New York City for a work trip in November and saw a lot of sneezes while I was there. 

1. A man was talking really loud on his phone on the platform and it sounded like a business or work call. He sneezed rapidly a few times and I think it was into his forearm because when I looked over, it was up to his face. It something like “heh’ESH-ESHH! hehSCHOO! Whoo! Didn’t mean to sneeze in your ear. Yeah I got a cold.” I didn’t get on the same car as him so I don’t have a great description of him but I saw/heard that.

2. The next was a woman maybe in her 50s. She sat next to me on the subway (but 2 empty seats between us) and I saw her holding a wad of tissues. She sniffled a little the whole ride but didn’t sneeze. She held the tissue ball up to her nose when she was getting off so maybe she sneezed later. She had shorter hair and a small nose that she dabbed at every few minutes.

3. This was on a standing room crowded subway car. A younger woman was beside me talking to her friend who ended up kind of on my other side because of people pushing them apart when getting into the car. She and the other woman were leaning around me a little to hear each other and all of a sudden the one woman tossed her head back and sneezed. It was a dramatic HRUSHHHHAH! and the movement startled me but she managed to cover it in her elbow.

4. This one is I think in my top 5 of all time. I was sitting down on another subway car and a woman probably in her late 20s with long red curls was standing in front of/over me. She looked like she was sick because her nose was almost like a stereotype drawing of a person with a cold. The tip of her nose was very pink and it went halfway up the bridge and her cheeks had a bit of pink in them. Her lips were parted a little and her nose was kind of bigger but I think it suited her. I don't think she noticed I was keeping an eye on her but I don't think she would have questioned it anyway since it was hard to look anywhere without looking at someone while we were packed in so tight. I was “looking up at the advertisements” in the car AKA keeping her in my sight and trying to not be creepy. I couldn't not look though because my sneeze radar was going off and I had a feeling she would sneeze! In the corner of my eye I saw her head tip back so I looked at her immediately and saw her nostrils flare dramatically with her lips parted more. She took in a big breath and sneezed a wet and congested hzzssschhiuh! hah’zzsssschhuh!!

The first one wasn’t covered and the second was badly covered with the back of her hand. I blessed her and she just nodded while she wiped her nose with her wrist. I wasn't sure if I was crazy but after seeing the little droplets on my jacket sleeve I knew that I definitely got sneezed on. She was standing right above me (so close her legs were against my knees) so I felt her first uncovered sneeze hit me in the face and a little bit from the second one because the back of her hand was very far from her face. I really thought I was making it up because this is definitely something I would go crazy for in a fic haha. As much as I'm careful about contagion, this is a sneeze scenario I read and/or think about a lot so....

Those were her only sneezes but she sniffled constantly and let out small coughs every so often. It was really not surprising when I caught an awful cold a few days later (tested negative for everything else). Luckily I was back at home by that time so I didn't have to be sneezy on the airplane. I was a little sniffly on the plane back, but didn't catch the cold fully until a day or two later.

5. A man was standing up across the aisle where I was standing on the subway. I saw him moving around a lot while he dug in his messenger bag for a while with one hand while the other held the railing. I didn't think he was going to sneeze but I was curious about what was so important that he needed to bump the people around him. I don't know....just people watching to pass the time haha. I guess he was looking for a tissue or something because when he couldn’t get the bag open in time he sneezed down toward his chest. It sounded wet but it seemed like he was able to sneeze on himself and not on anyone else.

6. I heard sneezes from a lot of people on the airplane there and back, but nobody close enough to me to see who it was. The barista at the coffee stand I stopped at after getting off the plane stifled a sneeze while taking my order and she sounded really congested.

Those were the ones I noticed on that trip but I had a lot of obs to record when I got home! These were my favorites AKA the ones I had a lot of detail for haha.

1. It was just me and a woman on the bus for a few stops one day but then another woman got on. She was wearing a winter coat and scarf. It isn’t warm out, but we're out of the kind of weather where people are still wearing scarves to keep warm. She sat a few rows up and I didn’t pay any attention to her until i heard her sneeze like hee-choo! ah-choo! I had one headphone in but I paused my music and slipped it out just in case she was going to sneeze again. I heard sniffling but wasn’t sure if I could see another sneeze. Luckily for me it wasn’t like she could notice me looking since i was behind her haha. The first woman got off the bus and then it was just us. I don't think she knew I was there because maybe a minute after the woman left she leaned into the aisle with a hee-choo! hee-choo-uh! She didn't cover this time because I guess she thought she was alone even though the bus driver was still there too obviously. A few minutes later she leaned into the aisle again and sneezed once but I guess leaning over meant she saw me in the corner of her eye. She put her hand by her face for the next sneeze but she didn't fully cover so it probably wasn't worth the effort haha. With the sunlight I was lucky to see some spray from her.

2. A younger man sitting across the aisle from me sneezed into his hands like HRRASHHHHUH! while bending down kind of between his legs. When I saw him straightening back up I saw that he had a surgical mask pulled down to his chin. He cleared his throat after and rubbed his nose with his index finger really roughly before pulling the mask back up. Not sure why he took it down in the first place, but at least he covered I guess.

3. A woman was blowing her nose a lot and would hold the tissue up to her face with both hands. She grabbed basically every possible handle or bar near her when she was getting up and leaving so I feel bad for anyone who got on after.

4. This week on Monday I was annoyed because I had to take the longer bus route to get home (and during rush hour traffic). It usually takes around 40 minutes instead of 25 on that route during rush hour. I was ok with it only because I got so lucky and had two sneezy passengers there to keep me occupied.

It was a lot of people trying to get home from work I think so almost all the seats were taken. I looked up when I heard a sneeze but I couldn't figure out who it was from until he sneezed again a few minutes later. It was a man reading a book, and it seemed like he was using the book to cover his sneezes. He sneezed 4 or 5 times throughout the 30 minutes or so that we were on together and he always lifted his book up a few inches to sneeze on it before putting it back in his lap.

A woman sat next to me and she was sniffling for maybe 10 minutes without sneezing. She did cough every so often into her fist. After that, she bent forward and sneezed really wetly without covering at all like hih-tssssshhhhiew! It wasn't really loud but it sounded insanely wet and really itchy and desperate. She started wiping her nose with the back of her hand a lot after that and she sneezed again a few minutes later. She bent forward to sneeze freely again but this time it was a triple with the last two covered. She sneezed into her right hand and wiped it on her jeans but sneezed into her left hand while wiping off her right hand like she didn't expect to have a third one. I glanced over and saw her jeans were a little dark where she wiped off the spray and I casually offered her a tissue from my backpack. She took it and said thanks but she just kind of dabbed her nose and crumpled it in her hand. Maybe her sneezes were too sudden or maybe she isn't used to sneezing into a tissue, but about half of her sneezes weren't covered and the other half were covered by her free hand while the tissue hand stayed in her lap. I got off before she did but we got on at the same stop, so I spent all 40 ish minutes next to her while she sneezed (mostly doubles or triples) basically every 2 minutes. Sometimes she would sneeze her double or triple and then cough right after into her fist. I started to feel a little sniffly on Wednesday afternoon and woke up with a cold on Thursday. I can make a separate post about my colds since there were unfortunately 4 total since November (including the one I have now)!

I'm sorry again for them being so long but I try to be as detailed as I can when I write them down so I can share them properly haha.

[atchoum]

Thank you.  I love day-to-day sneeze observations from real life.  You have been lucky with public transport too !  Thanks for passing it on!

[Steelswarm]

As always, thanks for the obs and especially the detail (sneeze spelling, visual descriptions, etc) really immersive and always fun to read 🙂

Edited February 2 by Steelswarm

[Sneeze-aholic]

Thanks for sharing such a comprehensive set of obs, but sorry that you're catching the cold now too. Hope you're feeling better soon 

[SkolVikes]

I loved the one where she sneezed uncovered into the aisle when she thought she was alone.  So great to see how they’d sneeze “In private” 

[muskysneeze]

These are what I LOOOOVE to read. Guilty pleasure, day to day observation of people sneezing, sometimes uncovered in tight packed spaces like in public transportations. I love the amount of details you put into describing these obs, especially the spray, mist and wetness that comes from stranger's sneezes. 

[Lady Blessington]

On 2/2/2024 at 2:35 AM, snzer said:

She sneezed into her right hand and wiped it on her jeans but sneezed into her left hand while wiping off her right hand like she didn't expect to have a third one.

Good lord! 🔥

I really like your observations. Good work 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Hope you are feeling better!

[Arachnid]

Wow so many.. and so many good ones. Thanks for sharing!