Quiet cars on Metra- Oh baby, it's not a sound idea

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'Ticky-ticky-ticky. It's ticky time!" "All right. OK. Uh-huh."

"Young man. Young woman. And up top ..."

Metra conductors have cries as distinctive as birds. While a few cling to a standard "have your tickets ready and on display please," many, maybe most, emboldened by tenure, encouraged by friendly commuters, and perhaps a little unhinged by years of routine, have turned punching tickets into a kind of quirky public performance, like being a turn-of-the-century fruit vendor or a fire-eating busker.

Some riders no doubt appreciate it -- God, I hope so -- though myself, I prefer my conductors terse and stolid. My favorite conductor has the gravity of a priest and would no sooner yell "ticky-ticky-ticky" than he would slip off his blue serge jacket and sing "Gypsy Strip" in the middle of the car.

Not that I'm annoyed by the more colorful conductors' cries. The world is loud. They join the rattling, creaking and screeching of the train itself, plus the soundtrack provided by riders, typically in the form of the man behind me bawling something truly banal into his cell phone. "Hey honey, I'm on the train. THE TRAIN! Yup, just like yesterday. And I'll be home at exactly the same time I'm home every single day. Yup. What's for dinner- FOOD- Wonderful!"

Normally, I don't pay attention. Should it become bothersome -- some guys have that penetrating, heavily rosined I'm-a-big shot voice that saws through your sternum -- there's this wonderful new device, the iPod. I screw in a pair of earbuds, flip on "Madama Butterfly," and the guy in the seat behind me could start carving a totem pole with a chain saw and I wouldn't notice.

Thus, it was a little bewildering to have Metra ask riders, in its October newsletter, whether we want an officially designated quiet car. God no. First, people who are rude -- and there aren't that many -- are also oblivious. They'll go in the quiet car so they can talk to their rep in Singapore. Second, conditions change. You go in the quiet car with the baby because she's sleeping, and then the baby wakes up. Or your cell phone rings -- it's Billy! He's alive! But he needs help! What do you say- "I'm sorry Billy, I can't talk about the ransom now, I'm in the quiet car."

And who enforces quiet in the quiet car- The aforementioned conductors. All stout fellows, though they seem busy enough collecting tickets without being laden with new duties.

The quiet car idea -- which Metra is rightfully lukewarm about -- seems decades behind the times. I'd much rather have a No-McDonald's Car. I can't be the only guy who walks into a car, catches a wave of that knee-weakening McStench, and twirls around to head into another car.

As opposed to babies. I make a beeline to babies. First, because the seats around them are always empty as my fellow suburbanites -- at every moment, in all things, maximizing their advantage -- don't sit by babies, cute though they be, because babies sometimes cry.

Me, I hope they cry, and here's why: My wife and I were flying to Colorado once with the boys, when they were an infant and a toddler. One started howling as the plane descended, and the other joined in, while we frantically jingled keys over them and tried to press fishy crackers to their quivering lips as they screamed ever louder.

"Can't you keep them quiet- " a nearby businessman snarled.

I'd like to say I looked up, eyes glittering, and hissed, "No, as a matter of fact, I CAN'T keep them quiet, you heartless, smug, overpaid, corporate bastard! Do you think I WANT them to do this- "

But I must have just thought it.

So now I position myself by the babies, hoping they start up, waiting for the mother desperately shushing and jiggling the tot to look up -- and they always do -- glancing in my direction to gauge just how pissed off I'm getting. I always nod sympathetically and smile warmly. "Been there," I say. It makes my day.

No quiet cars. Just post a sign reading: "Hey Jerks: Try to Remember You're Out in Public." There's a delicious irony in realizing that the greater our ease at plugging ourselves in to our portable electronic cocoons, the less tolerance we have for any kind of intrusion whatsoever.

Me, I sort of miss the occasional conversation, which in 10 years of riding the Metra has become more rare. At first I thought that, rather than create quiet cars, Metra should experiment with conversation cars -- places where commuters who want to talk to someone could go and actually interact with other human beings.

Then I realized, they had those -- they called them "bar cars" -- and Metra just got rid of them all, so the odds of them coming back are scant. Progress is a cruel mistress.