Earhustling

Earhustling is the fine art of being all up in somebody else's conversation. I don't really endorse it, but the shit happens sometimes. What starts out as passive overhearing can become active earhustling faster than folk would care to admit. No, nobody was talking to you, but we're all guilty of it...often you don't start out intending to listen to anything being dicussed by other people, but they're either being so fuckin loud with it you couldn't not hear them if you wanted to (I shouldn't be able to hear you discuss the pros and cons of different herpes medications over my music...) or the topic of convo is just too good to ignore. This was one of the latter cases.

It was Saturday afternoon and I was taking yet another el ride from Center City. I was sitting and staring out the window, watching that really cool effect that the relflection of the outside makes when the image moves in the opposite direction of the train. (If you haven't, look at it one day...it looks like you're traveling back in time lol) I was on my way to the Gallery to get a new hat to put with the other 213 or so that I own (how do you think I wear one just about every waking moment of every single day?) when a group of chicks that I'll call the Flock got on at 52nd St. and the entertainment value of the train ride increased exponentially.

The Flock was composed of 6 little chickenheads in training who couldn't have been more than 15 on a good day (and were prolly closer to 13). They noisily found seats somewhere behind me and began to twitter and squawk back and forth in the way that only a pack of teenage female baby birds can. I tried my best to ignore their little hoodrat forum, but caught bits and pieces of their loud discussion eventually I was able to piece together the topic, which got my radars up: their Valentine's day plans. The sad part is they sounded way more interesting than mine. (I'm not gonna get too graphic, that's child pornography...I don't need Chris Hansen breathing down my neck...let's just say my little V-day poem reflected no problems of theirs...)

They went on and on about seeing their boyfriends and getting gifts for Valentine's...it was actually kinda cute until one girl proudly bragged about, and I quote: "gettin some dick tonight". The other girls agreed enthusiastically and began to share their own plans. Another one of them chimed in with how she was gonna "put it on somebody" that night (You're 13 years old, ya fun-size smut...do you even have anything to put on anybody? I don't even think girls that age have separate lips yet...), I heard a squeal and high fives being slapped. Now, I'd be lying if I said this was the first episode of "SEPTA Sex Talk" I had seen, but it was my first juniors division show. I gotta admit, even in twentyten it shocked me a little.

I ventured a half head-turn to guage the reaction of other riders and saw people around me aghast..that was enough to make me feel justified in ear-hustling because I wasn't the only one who heard it. I turned my eavesdropperator to maximum power and leaned back in my seat to try and catch the next turn of the convo...it was like watching a live taping of an "out of control teens" Maury. It was at this point that one of the Flock mentioned how good of a time she had when she got 'partied' by 3 guys recently (in case you don't know what that is, it means the car carrying us wasn't the only train being run that day...) and how she had a repeat performance scheduled tomorrow night.

"Whoa Namath..." I thought to myself. On that one, I had to turn around...I had to see the reaction to this revelation. I expected for everything to just stop and her friends give her the "I wouldnta told that" face like everybody else on the car. It was met not with shock or disgust, but curiousity. Her friends wanted to know what it was like, they asked her questions like a interview with the MVP after the Super Bowl ("You've experienced triple penetration before you're eligible for a driver's license, what are you gonna do now!?") They congratulated her on her abilities..."Damn, girl you must can really take some pipe!" It was like she deserved some kind of jumpoff courage award in their eyes. (Who doesn't wanna win a Flockie for "valor in the face of a gangbang?")

That one was too much...I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't know whether to bust out laughing, cry for the future of our society, chastise the girls on their freely whorish ways like a old man (which would have been a lose-lose...I woulda got a rubbernecked cussout from a 14 year old MySpace freak, and I would ended up have giving her the right hand of discipline and got hauled off to jail) or just post about it at some point. They made the decision easy by getting off at the next stop, and I went with options A and D while most of my fellow El riders just shook their heads in disgust.

Yeah I sat there and listened to their whole conversation, but I wager you would have done the same. It's not like they weren't loud as shit for me to hear anyway, I'm not even sure it counts as a legit earhustle (Eavesdropping is only a bad thing if you do it all the damn time...ole Rick Ross "every day I'm hustlin" style folk) but hell, I did it. It was a real shame to think that most or all of the Flock will be either pregnant or burnt in less than a year...but hey, at least they had some fun on the 14th...and I know that, all thanks to a little earhustling.