Maybe it was the gooey saliva and snot bubbling from every facial orifice. Maybe it was the way she precariously hung over her tiny mother’s shoulder. Or maybe it was the fact that she had less regard for social boundaries than a Risley resident, and had been staring at me, reaching at my face for the entire subway ride. Whatever the reason, I was not about to lose a staring contest to someone who had nil control over her bowels. This was a pride thing.

My nemesis was dangling by one leg now, her diaper crunching as she inched closer to me, held from a 5-foot death fall by her mother’s haphazard grip on her baby cankle. I wondered if I could — or even would — catch her in time.