“Hey man, I take the subway. My hands are clean.”

But that’s not the point.

Nor is it the point that if bird flu ever gets its act together, we proles on the subway are going to be the first ones to hit the dust, long before those who whip around in their little individual motorized bubbles up on the surface. It’s one of the compromises we make for getting anywhere we want to go in this vast city for only $2.75 a trip. We’re cramped, we’re a little claustrophobic, and we’re one good mutation away from being this century’s plague rat. Such is the quiet burden of The Mole People, I suppose. If we’d really wanted something more, we would have worked a little harder in high school.

But as I said, not the point. Nor is it the point that no one — no matter how filthy, crazy, drunk or violent they happen to be — is refused entry (provided that they have correct change). I can deal with them. They’re colourful. They’re dinner theatre without the safety net.

I can deal with the pushing and the shoving and the gangster teenagers from Etobicoke, with their bandannas and their gold rings and their fuzzy little moustaches. I can deal with being herded into a big metal container alongside 50 other people who hate their jobs as much as I hate mine. I can take the static mosh pit of dead eyes and apathy, the knowledge that I must look just as crushed to them. I can handle being a broken little heart in a sea of broken little hearts.

It’s the strollers. I just can’t take the fucking strollers anymore.

I know that I must come across as a real piece of work, accepting degenerates, jerks and hooligans into my heart and then turning to point a middle finger at single mothers and happy families. But this column isn’t about winning friends and warming hearts, it’s about saving the world. So go ahead and crucify me, because I’m doing this for your own damned good.

Maybe it’s not even the strollers themselves. Maybe it’s the laziness and the lack of priorities and scale that they embody, the incongruity of using a 35 pound carriage to transport a 14 pound child.

I don’t know if strollers have always been this big, but I don’t think they have. They seemed enormous when I was young enough to ride one, but so did most dogs. Things change. Strollers used to be collapsible aluminum frames with enough nylon strung between the pipes to support oh, say, a baby.

But no more. Today’s stroller has more in common with a hang glider than it does with its modest and functional predecessors. Three feet or more athwart, with enough supports, straps, buckles and snaps to serve an ambitious mountain climber, the modern stroller has been designed to withstand a direct collision with a mid-class sedan without waking its passenger. But the sedan will probably be totally written-off.

Let it not be said that I am taking issue with strollers because they protect children too well; I’m only criticizing the disproportionate danger that they pose to the rest of us. Should the brakes suddenly be thrown on a bus, subway train or streetcar, strollers of today’s size become baby-guided missiles, battle chariots for two-foot-tall gods of war. Few, if any, are spared.

I think that child safety is of the highest priority, yet we must be ever mindful of ourselves as well. Wise are those who know that children are our future, but fools are they who neglect the present. I’ll be the first to admit that children are our most precious commodities, let’s just remember that they are also a renewable resource.

Why should we give our lives to protect these indolent little layabouts, who contribute nothing to society, forever shitting themselves and boring into our precious reserves of apple sauce?

Enough about problems. Let us speak now of solutions.

When it comes to technology, the North American natives were pretty much caught with their pants down when Europeans arrived in the 15th Century. One thing they absolutely nailed, however, was the papoose. With this compact and sensible child-in-a-backpack, there was no need to invent the stroller. Just strap the kid to your back or chest and off you go. I see the occasional parent with a nylon version of this classic innovation on the subway and I smile a golden smile at them. Finally, I think to myself, a little perspective.

If there’s one thing I can say about parenting, it’s that it is fraught with solemn responsibility that cannot be taken lightly. You accept the endless responsibility of protecting a helpless creature, of sculpting a tiny mind, of nurturing something pure and innocent and completely dependent upon you for its very survival. And if you are truly willing to shoulder such an incredible onus for such a tiny life, you should also be ready to carry the Goddamned thing.