Heading south on the Bathurst St. car this morning, I went right to the back for a seat -- and the front row for observing  a major TTC meltdown.

To my left was a woman, presumably in her early 30s, reasonably well groomed and wearing a fashionable leather jacket. The second person to her left was some guy, about 24, playing his iPod loud and tapping his umbrella on the floor.

Abruptly, the vigilante gets up and sits directly across from me -- and with iPod Boy immediately to her right.

"LA LA-LA, LA-LA, LA-LA; LAAA LA-LA, LA-LA, LA-LA!!" she starts singing loudly, putting her whole body into it. Then she spoke.

"Excuse me," she told him, edging her face into his space. "But you're playing your iPod really loud, and it's annoying everybody, so why don't you be a man and turn it down."

There was no 'please', but I suspect this was all about picking a fight and not the relative annoyance of the iPod's sound leakage -- which wasn't greatly annoying me or, as best I could tell, the other two people right at the back.

"Ohhh," he groaned, trying to look away from her.

"'Ohhh'," she repeated mockingly, cocking her head. She then asked, "Does that work with your mother?"

The verbal taunting continued. Rattled, he tried to hold up a Now magazine to put a physical barrier between himself and the vigilante.

She starts poking the mag with a pencil -- with some brio.

"Don't touch me, bitch!" iPod boy yells.

"Whatcha gonna do? Hit me?" she sneered, her eyes glittering. "You don't look like you've been to jail. You can't be that tough."

If that's not enough, she adds: "You probably haven't been with a woman for years, have you? Loser."

At this point, iPod boy gets up and moves to a seat right behind the rear exit.

"I can still hear it," the vigilante said with what I presume is her trademark sneer, leaning back and rolling her eyes.

"Loser," he muttered. "Talkin' about yourself?" she asked.

Sitting beside her, immediately to her left, is a young Chinese woman who looked like she'd rather be undergoing waterboarding in Abu Ghraib than be subjected to another minute of this.

Then, the viligante suddenly tries to make nice with those of us who are inadvertently at the epicentre of her tantrum.

"My apologies," she said with a you-know-how-it-is sigh. The look on her face suggested she'd just accidentally knocked over a glass of wine rather than wilfully engage in a bizarre public outburst over an iPod being played too loudly.

In the process, she tried to make eye contact. I kept  face impassive, my gaze fixed on an undefined spot on the streetcar's ceiling, and then I got off at the next available spot.