Casual.

Even though New York is one of the fashion capitals in the world, the city finds ways to keep things casual. Very few of our high-end restaurants require a dress code, you can get away with wearing pretty much anything to the theater, and people feel comfortable enough to do things in public like whip out a q-tip and clean their ears on their morning subway commute.

This weekend, on a rather long subway ride to Queens, I had an experience that exemplifies just how comfortable New Yorkers can be with themselves. As I was sitting on the train I noticed a terrible smell in the train car. I glanced to my right and quickly my attention was drawn to a woman changing her toddler son's diaper on the subway seat. I exchanged looks with my fellow subway riders that said, "Are you seeing this too?", "Is this really happening?", "Gross." The woman quickly finished the job, and applied hand sanitizer. But then there was the question of the dirty diaper. As we reached the next stop I was waiting for her to hop up and chuck the offending diaper into one of the waiting trashcans on the platform. New riders got on the train car (some of them commenting on the bad smelling car), and still the woman had not moved from her seat. Then, before the doors closed, casually, she tossed the diaper off the train and onto the platform as she had probably done many times before.