Dear LFTP: the unwanted monologue on public transit

• How do I politely tell a stranger on public transit that I would rather be left alone?

A listener writes that commuters trap him in forty-five-minute monologues despite his earbuds and book, asking how to politely signal he wants to be left alone. The hosts, one of them addressed as Boova, push back hard: take the earbuds out, put the book down, and listen, because the stranger may just need someone to care. A third host jokes that taking public transit is joining the human race, and another tells a casino story about listening to a grieving seventy-two-year-old widow despite his own awkwardness. Running jokes about papyrus scrolls, a papyrus-eating squirrel, and calling earbud-wearers 'Jackson' run through the exchange.