Pardon me, but is that seat taken? By a bag?

Is it me or have the rules for what is considered okay behavior changed?  Ever more frequently, it feels like what I would consider a rude behavior is the norm, while my questioning or refusing to let it ride has become the rude behavior.  I've mentioned this in the past - and will again and again, because this is a huge pet peeve of mine.  And one of the biggest peeves for me is the bag on the train seat.

When the train is packed and people are searching for a seat or standing, how is it possible that people continue to leave their bags on seats?  And why, when I am put in the position of asking someone to move their bag so I can sit, am I treated as if I am the rude one?  More often than not, you, the bag person have a monthly ticket (although that is not to say you need to ride the train every day to know a person gets priority for a seat over a bag!) so I know you've heard the announcements about being courteous to your fellow passengers.  The bag thing is one of only three things you're asked not to do (mind you, the others - don't put your feet on the seats and be considerate when using your cell phones - are, big shock, frequently ignored as well).

Yet when I pause next to you, my intention obvious, you do nothing.   On a crowded train where people are in the aisle searching for seats, you sit there, an available seat next to you occupied only by a bag (sometimes it's a big bag, sometimes it is a tiny little thing, a miniature brown paper shopping bag all alone in the big old seat), and you make me ask you to move that bag.  Now, clearly you are playing the odds that people will feel uncomfortable and not ask you to move it, and you are okay with other people standing while your bag takes up a seat providing you with some nice, roomy space on a crowded train.  Come on, just admit it - that's why it's there. It's not because you don't want to put it on the ground.  After all, I've seen you and your kind in Starbucks - you put it on the ground there, no problem.  You're giving yourself some extra room and the heck with anyone else. 

And when I say "excuse me" with a chin nod to the bag (and I will because in a civil society you should move your bag to give a fellow passenger a seat and my personality will not allow it to be otherwise), you give me a dirty look and act all put out, like it's the biggest inconvenience in the world (as opposed to, say, the inconvenience suffered by the people who are standing on a moving train for 50 minutes because you think you deserve to be more comfortable than them).   Double jeers to the people who sit on the aisle seat and put their bag on the inside hoping that either 1) no one will notice it's a bag not a person or 2) having to ask them to move their bag and their person will be too much for the timid souls who have bought into the fallacy that asking you to be courteous makes them rude.   Not me - I'm asking you first...

Mind you,  my snark is reserved only for those situations in which seats are at a premium.  If there's plenty of room, go ahead, live it up - put the bag on the seat.  Just don't put your feet on the seat across from you while you talk loudly on your cell phone.  Because then I'll be writing about you in another blog.