If it's so gross why do I love it?

I have said it before, but it bears repeating. I love the subway. There is something fundamental to the subway that I cannot reconcile with my adoration of the underground railway, and that is, the subway is disgusting. I mean mind numbingly soul-crushingly nasty. I t has given me a compulsion that the first thing I have to do is wash my hands, with soap. So why? Why do I love it when it grosses me out to such an extent? I see little kids on the train being given snacks. Snacks to eat with their fingers, and these children are not removed from the care of their parents. Eating on the train is just as disgusting as eating on the toilet.
On the other hand there is no more convenient way to get around a large city. Subways are not encumbered by street level traffic like cars and busses. There is another more cerebral attraction I have with the subway. The subway is a crazy social ecosystem all its own. There is a hierarchy that is so much more noble than the world above ground. Seats are first come first serve, but people are eager to give up a seat for a pregnant lady, or an elderly of infirm person. New Yorkers, the people trained from birth to ignore everything going on around them, turn into the most gallant of group of people when presented with the appropriate stimuli as long as it is underground.
But at the same time there are rats (subway chipmunks) everywhere, the stations and tracks are covered with 140 years of the most disgusting grime imaginable. Oh if only loving transpiration infrastructure were easy, I guess we'd all be doing it.

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