Sick of commuting

On the drive into work this morning, I was stopped at a red light. This was unusual because, oh…wait…no it wasn’t.

I hate red lights.

There were three or four cars in front of me as we all sat there for around half an hour waiting for the fucking lights to go green. After a few minutes the driver in front of me opened their1 car door and appeared to vomit directly onto the tarmac.

Classy.

Then again, this is Las Vegas during the days between Christmas and New Year, so I suppose it’s not that unusual, right? There is a lot of drinking going on around this time.

What concerned me the most was that I was worried more about rolling my tyres [tires] through their previous evening’s poor fast food choices than the fact the driver might still be drunk.

Then it occurred to me that maybe the driver hadn’t been sick at all, but had simply dumped out their coffee cup.

That made more sense as I could see there was a little bit of steam rising from the dark puddle of questionable fluid slowly spreading out across the road.

Then the lights turned green and the traffic started to move.

As I approached the puddle of coffee I decided to drive around it, no longer concerned about the level of inebriation of the driver, but by the fact the ‘coffee’ appeared to have some lumps of – I want to say – carrot?

So, not fast food then.

Which is it? You be the judge….

1 – I didn’t see the driver, so let’s play the pronoun game!

Punctuation station

Every morning I see this sign on the door to the control room at London Victoria underground station

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Obviously this room is out of bounds to commuters.

But this sign also suggests the same applies to station staff and contractors.

So, who CAN enter this room? 

Maybe only those people capable of using punctuation.

Shit down and shut up

My wife and I were in a mall in Vegas shortly after breakfast and, as we meandered around the shops I didn’t recognise, I suddenly felt the playdough effect kicking in.

Basically, a turd was imminent.

So I hobbled to the ‘Restroom’ to do anything but rest. I walked in and there were two empty cubicles (or ‘stalls’) along with three urinals, all of which were occupied.

No problem, this was going to be a sit down performance anyway.

I went into the first cubicle, locked the door (although it made no difference to my privacy with the gaps around the door) and dropped my shorts for the big performance.

I just had to make sure I didn’t make too much noise as it was very quiet in there.

I started clenching and relaxing at the same time.

Got to be quiet.

Got to be quiet.

There was a pause and all that could be heard were three streams of piss on porcelain.

Got. To. Be. Quiet.

Ha, no chance. My arse decided to sound like the final squeeze of a ketchup bottle.

I waited 5 minutes after I was finished before leaving the cubicle.

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The accidental pervert

The London Underground is a busy place at rush hour; crammed full of people from every walk of life and in every shape, size and colour.

A few days ago I was on the platform at London Victoria underground station awaiting the next sardine tin to arrive and whisk us away.  It was the usual scenario of pushing and squashing to get prime position on the platform for the opening doors.  The train pulled alongside the platform, the doors opened and we all started to habitually scowl at the people getting off the train. 

A scowl that basically says, ‘hurry the fuck up’.

Once the dead weight had alighted the train, the slow motion pushing and shoving began, only to be met with the one fucking twat who still hasn’t disembarked the train. 

Why does this happen?  Who the fuck forgets to get off the train? 

It’s likely they suddenly realised this was their stop (at the last minute) because they were too caught up playing Candy (fucking) Crush.

They are, in fact, complete idiots.

This late, sloth-like exodus by these morons usually reignites the scowl, with a subtle hint of eye rolling and a lot of quiet sighing as we’re forced to slowly move back onto the platform from the much coveted metal flooring of the train.  Today was no exception.

Ok, are they out?

Are we sure?

Good.

Puuuuuuuush…..!!!

The slow motion mosh pit resumed and bodies were crushed together like a man’s junk in 80s jeans.  It was nuts to butts as we managed to squeeze the last person on, leaving no room to slide a credit card between us.  There were armpits in the face and lumps and bumps pressed against lumps and bumps.

But frankly, I didn’t care.  I was on the train.  So fuck the rest of you.  Ha! 

I freed one of my hands and reached up to grab a rail in anticipation of the train moving.

At this moment a guy managed to somehow shoehorn himself onto the train before the doors closed, causing a domino effect of squashing that resulted in a woman pressing right up against me. 

Now, this isn’t unusual on the underground by any means, but on this occasion she’d managed to effortlessly wedge my other hand against my thigh……with her bum. 

It’s worth mentioning that I hadn’t actually noticed at first; fighting to keep my footing and stay upright as the train pulled away.  To be honest, if I’d let go of the rail I still wouldn’t have fallen over as there wasn’t space to move.  I reckon I could’ve lifted both feet off the ground and still stayed in place, although I may have sunk down like I was in quicksand and I would’ve had a face full of bum.

The train had started to shake and jerk around like it usually does, which is when I realised that I had a bum rubbing left and right against the back of my hand.  This would’ve been tolerable if she’d been a 21 year old model, but not if she was a 55 year old geography teacher.

But i’m a happily married man, so I use the word ‘tolerable’ loosely.

(Ahem)

Anyway, I could clearly make out the bum cleft on each pass of her buttocks across my hand.  I could make out the shape and density of each cheek as it swayed left, then right, then left; over and over again like she was Miley Cyrus and I was Robin Thicke. 

The certainty I had of being able to pick out the subtle distinctions in the shape of her bum left me realising the cold, unnerving truth; this granny was either wearing a thong…or nothing.

(Shudder)

I was also very aware that my hand was so wedged in that I would’ve had to pull really hard to remove it, alerting her to the fact that it was my hand and not some random bag or something.  Also, considering it had been wedged in there at least 45 seconds at this point, I would’ve been considered a bit of a pervert for not moving it sooner. 

That would’ve resulted in an entirely different type of scowl.

So I could do nothing but stand there for the next two minutes, copping a feel against my will, with very distinguishable buttocks rubbing seductively against me by an unattractive old woman who had no idea she was doing it.

I washed my hands a lot when I got to work.

squashed ass

Mis-carriage

This morning the much coveted front carriage of the train was inaccessible and the doors weren’t working.

It is much coveted because the exit at London Victoria station is at the front and saving ourselves an extra few metres at the end of the journey is just SO important.

As a small group of us collected by the door, the allocated ‘pusher of the door button’ (which is never discussed or agreed, but still the responsibility somehow falls to one person and never disputed) started prodding away only to find that nothing was happening.

The driver had to lean out of the window and tell us, as we continued to stand there watching the ‘pusher of the door button’ moronically repeat her duty over and over, that the carriage was out of order due to a broken window and we’ll have to use the carriage behind it.

That would explain all the yellow and black striped tape covering the window. I was actually looking forward to it blocking out the sun to be honest.

There was the slightly squelchy noise as all eyes rolled in unison before we grudgingly, but with a slightly awkward walk/run, made our way to carriage number two.

What was interesting*, as I took my seat, was the fact that my fellow commuters then tried to access the front carriage from the inside, moaning and tutting when the doors were inevitably locked. It was almost as if the train company KNEW they were going to attempt that.

Clever train company; they thought of everything.

Asking these creatures of habit to find a seat in a different carriage is like asking a man to stop touching his penis or a woman to change her mind.

Possible, but not without a little drama and upset.

You know when a dog takes forever to pick where they want to lay down, and then when they do eventually make a decision they circle and circle and circle until they either finally lay down or get shouted at to lay the fuck down?

It’s the same with commuters.

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*fucking annoying

One slided conversation

There’s a guy on the train having a full blown argument….with the door.

He’s getting very animated and at one point I thought he was going to drop his rapidly depleting six pack of beers.

He’s really going for it… talking with a proper ghetto swagger and saying “you get me?” a lot.

Other than sliding open and shut, these doors are pretty inanimate… and yet he’s still losing the argument.

Welcome to my commute ladies and gentlemen.

A door able?

In our modern society, technology has made our lives that little bit easier.  We can now contact our friends whenever and wherever we want, we have an unlimited source of information to hand 24/7 via the internet and toilets in Japan wash your undercarriage for you when you’re done.

On occasion technology can be a proper pain in the ass when something fails to work.

Case in point…

I noticed at the train station this morning that the sliding entrance doors to the building were ‘out of service’.  I know this because someone had taped a very untechnological piece of A4 paper to the door; I can only assume to prevent those of us reliant on technology walking into them face first.

It can happen.  I’ve seen it.  Fucking funny.

It got me thinking about how a door can be ‘out of service’.  If someone says the word ‘door’ we tend to conjure up an image of a rectangular wooden affair with a handle, on hinges, in a frame.  The door may be locked, the door may ‘stick a little’, it may even have busted hinges and needs a bit of a push to open…but never ever is it ‘out of service’.

What next?

“I’m sorry, this pot pourri is out of service”. 
“I’m afraid the lawn is malfunctioning”.
“I do apologise but the cutlery is out of order”.

(Well actually, to someone with OCD that last one is already a stark reality).

Back in the 80’s I used to dream of the day we would have cool sliding doors like the corridors of the Starship Enterprise.  Now they’re an every day reality which we all take for granted, as well as the fact that they regularly break down.  We simply read the poorly spelt A4 warning and go to the ‘adjecant door’.

This never happened to Kirk; ever.

And as I remember the embarrassment a few months ago of standing in a revolving door waiting for it to move, only to be told I had to push it; I ask myself this….

Are we becoming too reliant on the convenience of technology? 

I’ll Google it.

To boldly go…

On the trains there are these huge great toilets with an automatic curved sliding door, not dissimilar to the turbolift door on the bridge of the USS Enterprise (which completely redefines “captain’s log” for me).

These doors take an age to close which is useful if you’re crowning. So imagine my amusement when i saw this…

A guy resembling a cross between Napoleon Dynamite and Wally from the ‘where’s Wally’ books was walking past the toilet just as the snail paced door was closing for some trembly-kneed commuter. On this occasion I knew exactly where this Wally was going as he was so preoccupied on some bloke’s iPad he started to veer towards the toilet. He hit the sliding door with the centre of his bespectacled face.

Full on.

Loudly.

I laughed. I mean I really LOL’d.

Thankfully I’m reading Simon Pegg’s book at the moment, so I had a scapegoat, but it did very little to mask the dribbling wreck I became having witnessed this beautifully crafted moment.

He then apologised to the door which was priceless, as he fumbled to straighten his glasses…and his tattered pride.

I don’t think I was the only person who pissed themselves.