silent train cars

As you may know, I have this special relationship with silence. Or at least with the IDEA of silence. Or with sound that I have control over.

Whatever.

Anyway, one of the coolest, and cruelest, things about Dutch trains is that they have a "Silent" train car. The idea is that this is where people travel who want to travel in silence. There are notes to that effect on the walls and windows of the train car. It is an absolutely fabulous idea.

It is also a cruel illusion. Of course you won't have everyone in a train car sitting there in silence, no matter what sort of admonishing notes you put on walls and windows. There's always that kid asking the dad questions about everything under the sun. There's always that pair of college friends talking about this and that. There's always the idiot on a mobile phone. What there ISN't is silence, even when 99% of the passengers aren't making a sound. Silence is one of those things that can always be vetoed by the one person who doesn't want it.

The funny thing is, I'd LOVE to travel in a completely silent train car, but I think I'd rather sit in a "normal" train car with lots of noise around me than in a so-called "silent" train car in which people should be silent, but aren't. Even if it's still quieter in the "silent" train car than in the normal one, the fact that it SHOULD be completely silent amplifies every little noise for me so that I end up feeling more angry and distracted than I do when surrounded by noise that, as far as decibels, is louder.

(you may notice, as I just did, that this entry is almost a complete repetition of something I said in a previous blog entry. Sometimes I know I've been wanting to write about something for a while, and I forget whether I've actually written about it or not.)

Is there anything like that for you? Any idea that would be fabulous if it worked well, but that works just imperfectly enough to aggravate the problem for you?