Every day I keep my train ticket close at hand in my pocket, just in case the ticket inspector on the train comes asking.
Every day there’s no sign of him.
Today I put my train ticket in the deep and hard to find recesses of my bag.
“Tickets please!”
Wanker.
A woman gets on the train with her friend. They natter for a bit and then the conversation stops as the woman gets out her laptop and starts typing furiously.
A lot of people do work on the train; I see it every day. Excel, PowerPoint, Word, emails…. it’s never ending.
I wonder what she’s working on. I can’t see properly because of the sunshine glaring on her screen. Whatever it is it must be important; she has a serious look on her face and her fingers are a blur on the keyboard.
Suddenly we enter a tunnel and the glare is taken away.
Facebook.
I’m stuck on a packed train just outside East Croydon with a 3G signal going up and down like a local girl’s knickers.
Luckily I’ve been here about 45mins because apparently someone got hit by a train earlier today.
I’ve got another hour of this at least. Joy joy joy!! (claps hands excitedly until blood is drawn)
I can understand getting hit by a car or a boat because they could come from any direction, but a train is pretty much on rails if I’m not mistaken, and therefore it’s easy to predict where they might be coming from; left, or right.
I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead or the seriously injured, but….
Twat.
In addition to all this, the woman next to me is talking VERY LOUDLY TO HER CHILDREN ON THE PHONE AND SAYING THAT “MUMMY WILL BE HOME SOON” AND THEY NEED TO “STOP BEING SAD”. She’s actually said this about 37 times.
She’s just asked her child where her monkey is, and if they’ve warmed it up.
Strange…when I do that it’s frowned upon.
Now she’s trying to connect to them via facetime on her iPad. That will be amazing; to hear her whiny kids first hand. I mean, she’s talking to them on the phone… so why do it on the iPad for all of us to experience?
Oh, 38 times.
She’s also just told her fucking offspring that she’s going to the dentist to get her gold tooth replaced.
Classy.
The woman opposite me is reading her book, resting her head on her very, very clenched fist.
Oh look, facetime has connected.
Now she’s talking to them on her phone AND waving at them on her iPad. What is the purpose of that?
39 times. Right that’s it.
Today there will be more than one train fatality.
This morning at Victoria tube station there seemed to be a bottleneck forming at the top of the escalator. This is usually due to some penis who either has a massive suitcase with no understanding of how to steer it, or an inability to successfully step onto a moving staircase without counting in their head.
One, two, (step forward)
(Falls over)
But not this morning. No, this morning it was a woman with a pushchair.
I won’t lie, my initial thoughts were…
“Get the fuck out of the way you twat! We’re all trying to get to work! I mean who the fuck brings a child onto the underground at rush hour you massive wanker!?”
…but I soon realised that might be a little insensitive, so I didn’t say anything.
This poor struggling mother clearly had to travel at rush hour, otherwise why would she? And it couldn’t have been easy pushing a small child around; navigating the escalators and trains with hoards of busy and ‘incredibly tolerant’ commuters rushing past her like a torrid river around a stupid fat rock.
She finally managed to count to three and merged with the moving staircase; shuffling to the right (and quite rightly so), to allow other commuters to walk past her on the left. As I approached her I could see she was hunched over uncomfortably; desperately holding the pushchair and two massive bags in position as the escalator took us deeper into the bowels of London.
I felt for her, I really did. Poor cow.
I suddenly felt a wave of guilt come over me as I got closer to her. Who was I to judge her for holding us all up? Who the fuck was I to get impatient because she had a pushchair with a small child in it?
Hang on…hold the fucking phone…
As I got level with her I noticed the ‘small child’ was in fact a boy of at least four years old! He was certainly too old and too tall to be pushed around by his mother. I mean this literally of course; a lot of men are mentally pushed around by their mothers all their lives, or until the cyanide takes effect.
What the fuck is she doing pushing him around? Lazy little shit. I did wonder for a second if he was disabled, but he was using his perfectly healthy legs to turn around and talk to mummy; presumably to feed her a lump of sugar or whatever it is you give to a good horse.
Who’s a good horse? Who’s a good horse?
It pisses me off that this little prick was being shuttled around when he had two perfectly good legs, just like the little two year old girl STOOD on the escalator with her dad a few feet in front.
It makes me so angry that some parents pander to their children a little too much at times. We spend the first year or so encouraging them to walk, so let the fuckers walk.
In India, as soon as children have competent motor skills they start making trainers, presumably for English kids who don’t walk in them.
During my visit to America I was introduced to a food that I didn’t realise existed.
Just when I thought the United States couldn’t produce anything more ridiculously calorific I was introduced to…..
‘Cheese On A Stick’
I’m serious. Cheese….on a stick.
Cheese….on a fucking STICK!
There are lots of foods that work well on a stick such as kebabs, ice lollies, marshmallows etc., but not cheese; unless it’s accompanied by a chunk of pineapple and poking out of a potato covered in foil at a 1980s buffet.
But did it stop there? No. The Americans decided that ‘cheese on a stick’ should be dipped in batter and deep fried.
Are you shitting me?
Someone should warn these people before they get fat.
Interestingly, as we walked out of the food court (and I use the word ‘food’ loosely), I saw a very overweight couple stood at ‘The Cajun Grill’ ordering, well, everything it seemed.
The young guy behind the counter should’ve refused them service and said “No! Baaaad fatties!” and sprayed them with water.
That would’ve confused them because no-one in the U.S. food industry uses the word “No” and fatties don’t recognise water.
Today I got to experience my first Thai massage during a short stay in sunny Los Angeles, and the word ‘experience’ is definitely a word to describe it.
My Fiancée and I walked into the massage parlour and the smell of incense, coupled with the generic plinky plonky music playing in the background went some way towards relaxing us and making us feel welcome.
This is going to be great!
The friendly little old Thai guy behind the counter asked us if we wanted a Swedish massage in addition to our deep tissue massage.
Nah. We were just looking forward to our relaxing massage that had come with the hotel package we’d booked.
He smiled and showed us to our individual dimly lit rooms which were side by side. I say ‘rooms’, but they were more like huge cubicles without a ceiling and a curtain where the door should be. I was asked to strip down to my boxers and lie on the big comfy massage bed, face down.
No problem. This is going to be great!
I promptly stripped down and laid on my front, with my face resting in the hole designed for faces to rest in. It resembled a paper vagina. I’m not lying.
It was at this point I heard the friendly Thai gentleman say to my Fiancée in the next ‘room’ that I was a “big man” and asked if I was strong too. She said I was very strong. I must admit I felt a little smug and butch hearing this.
After a couple of minutes I heard the curtains swoosh open and a soft voice greet me. It was my masseuse; a small little Thai girl no older than about 23. She told me to relax as she turned up the volume of the plinky plonky music, swooshed the curtains closed and placed her small delicate hands on my right calf.
This is going to be….ow! What the fuck?? OW!!
Holy shit!!
What is happening?
Why is she hurting me??
HOW is she hurting me???
She’s tiny!!!!
It was a pain I can’t convey in words alone, but let me say it was like having my muscles put through a pasta machine on the thinnest setting whilst being stamped on by an elephant wearing stiletto heels. At least I think that’s what it felt like; I may have passed out.
But I didn’t dare whimper or complain because this was a birthday gift from my American beloved and I didn’t want to be the soft Brit who couldn’t handle a simple Thai massage. This was clearly something that was common place in California, like dentistry without anaesthetic or being shot in the head.
So I laid there whilst this young girl gave me a deep tissue massage that actually bordered on domestic abuse, holding my breath and dribbling. At least I now know why the flooring was laminate.
After about 10 minutes of abuse on my calves and back muscles (that I didn’t know I had), my killer, er, I mean my masseuse told me to “rerax”.
Relax? Are you shitting me? That’s like telling an angry woman to calm down. Not happening.
She asked me if I was ok, to which I replied through dribble and tears, “My god you are freakishly strong!”
She giggled like a small child. There’s no way this petite little thing was responsible for the pain and suffering my legs and back had taken. I swear that when she moved out of my line of sight she traded places with a massive Thai wrestler with massive Thai wrestler hands. It was the only explanation.
It was at this point I heard laughter from my fiancée’s room and the room the other side of me. It seemed my comment had hit a chord with the other torture victims.
After a few seconds of ‘reraxing’ she started again, only this time she stood on me. I’d seen this in movies and thought it would feel nice; I was wrong. I thought her hands were strong but they were nothing compared to her feet. Oh how soothing her heels felt with her entire weight behind them.
Wait; is that blood on the floor? I thought I was simply weeping tears. Clearly I was wrong.
Why does this girl hate me so much?
I was desperately trying not to make any noises that would indicate my suffering, like crying or asking for my mum, when I heard a faint whimpering and the occasional “ow!” from the next ‘room’. It seemed my fiancée was suffering too.
Good.
Honestly, it has to be one of the most slowly painful experiences of my life, and I’ve endured hours under the tattoo needle! She prodded, poked and stretched me to within an inch of my life, using her hands, feet, elbows and knees. The worst moments were when I realised, after having completely destroyed an arm or leg, that she was about to do the same to its counterpart.
She made me wish I had fewer limbs.
At the end of the hour long ordeal she sat me up and asked how I was feeling. I looked her in the eye and said “I feel like I’ve been beaten up in slow motion”.
She laughed and left.
My fiancée and I walked out of there in utter disbelief, laughing at the fact we just allowed ourselves to have the shit gently kicked out of us.
Well, I say ‘walked’….
The man opposite me on the train has the smallest chin in the world.
It must take him, like, seconds to shave.
Amusingly he just went to scratch it and nearly missed.
Head In A Blender 