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Sure, I've read the articles about how we live in an on-demand, just-in-time world. Some grouse about the pitfalls of the trend, others talk in glowing terms about how technology allows us to do more, and more quickly. So, I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised by a news report citing a study showing that something like 20% of adults eat at least one meal a day while riding somewhere, and fully one-third of us eat some of our meals standing up.

We didn't need some exhaustive study to learn this: Just hop on the bus. Passengers have turned buses, LRT's, streetcars and subways into a moveable feast: A clattering, jolting, squealing series of rancid coffee shops, greasy snack bars and foul-smelling sandwich wagons. Public transit has become Meals On Wheels.

This is most frequently seen during morning rush hour. For some reason, an extraordinary number of people find it impossible to get up 10 minutes earlier to make coffee or breakfast, or to wait another 15 minutes until they arrive at work to down a cinnamon square and their first cup.

But they find plenty of time to stop at the "KwikKoffeeKorner." Then, waving madly at the driver, hold up an entire busload or streetcar full of commuters as they dash frantically through on-coming traffic to board at the last minute because the coffee store line-up was longer than usual.

They squeeze through the closing door and elbow their way along the crowded aisle, apparently convinced that there is an empty seat back there. They usually give up about halfway and, wedged cheek by jowl against hapless, half-sleeping commuters, decide it is the ideal time to drink their coffee and eat an egg sandwich. Never mind that all around them are people dressed for work, possibly in clothes fresh from the dry cleaner, and who are trying desperately to hang on with one hand while trying to avoid inadvertently performing a lewd act on the person next to them because there is no place else for their free hand to go. As the bus rumbles along to the next stop, each time it hits a pothole anyone near the slurper who, typically, is oblivious to anything beyond their coffee cup risks being doused with hot liquid or ending up with food all over them.

I've had coffee dripped on my shoes. Crumbs from someone's Danish have fluttered onto my newspaper, a glop of jelly from a doughnut has ended up on my brief case, and half of the egg in a Croissanwich wiggled free of its flaky bonds to liberate itself on my pants. Once, as a streetcar lurched around

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