Total Dick Tattles On Fellow Train Rider Eating Burrito

Move over, baseball, because America has a new national pastime: Filming public hall monitors and shaming their overzealousness on social media. On the heels of #PermitPatty comes a yet-to-be-hashtagged individual on a Bay Area Rapid Transit train in Oakland. According to the San Jose Mercury News, a bespectacled man in a Hawaiian shirt chastised a fellow train passenger for eating a burrito on board. And then he makes the asshole move of calling the train intercom to report a man "dining in the first car."

We were discussing this story in our meeting today, and could synthesize what happened to a few key points: 1) The narc in the Hawaiian shirt overreacted and seems like a total dick, 2) Rules are rules, it does say you can't eat on the train, 3) But maybe let the guy eat his burrito in peace?

The more interesting debate we had was this: If you're riding on public transportation and there are clear signs about not eating while on board, what foods can you discreetly eat to circumvent this rule? (This coming off another popular discussion we had about foods you shouldn't eat on an airplane.)

The Takeout staff agreed that you should avoid any foods requiring utensils, which removes seemingly innocuous items such as yogurt. Any item, wrapped in its packaging (such as a Starbucks paper sleeve) is fine—which means in this instance, a self-contained burrito is allowed. Hard-shelled tacos, however, are not. Anything emitting a smell, like a hard-boiled egg, is a flat no. Lipton's instant chicken noodle in a cup is 10,000 percent not allowed.