Seats are empty for a reason

On a crowded train this evening with standing passengers at every corner, I see 2 empty seats in the back. Whenever this happens, you know that it's empty for a good reason.

I took a standing position where I can actually see the seats and saw a bunch of newspaper pages stacked up, an empty bowl of cup-o-noodle with drips of soup leaking onto the paper, a couple empty Twinkie wrappers and a black plastic bag with gum stuck on it. Throughout the entire ride, people approached the seats, noticed what was on there, made a face and remained standing. No one wanted to remove the trash (including yours truly), cleared the seat to sit down. Well, that is until one old couple needed to sit down and actually made the effort to fold up the newspaper and placed all the trash into the black bag.

I guess it just takes one person to clean up the mess. I wouldn't do it, especially not with the wet cup-o-noodle bowl. I'd rather stand than pick-up garbage from an unknown source. Apparently, at least 30 other passengers felt the same way and remained standing. It's my loss, maybe, but I'll take it standing.