So the day begins with the usual run from Oxford in to London. And we have the customary table for four – two seats facing forward, two seats backwards with a table between.
There are two people seated at the table, at opposite ends of a diagonal. In the aisle seat – facing backwards – is person ‘A’ whilst person ‘B’ sits at the window seat facing forward.
As I walk down the aisle person ‘B’ comes across as a selfish cunt. Instead of using any of the normal luggage stowage places, person ‘B’ has put her rucksack (slightly smaller than the Isle of Wight) and cycle helmet on the seat next to her.
And woe betide you my boy if you dare ask her to move any of her belongings so you can sit down because if you do she’s going to puff and faff and huff and generally not do anything at all until person ‘A’ graciously steps out in to the aisle so that you can sit in the window seat beside him.
She loves huffing and puffing does person ‘B’.
Then, because there are things to be done on the way in this morning, you get out your laptop. But alas, person ‘B’ has claimed ownership of the entire half of the table that is nearest the window. Unfortunately this declaration of UDI in the world of tableness includes the quarter of the table that I want to use. Correction. That I am going to use.
But not if person ‘B’ has her way, hatchet-faced, vinegar-expressioned hag that she is. But not old. Not in an absolutely ancient kind of way. Somewhere in her forties. Thin. Half-framed glasses. Short hair. A bit academic-ish in a schoolteacher kind of way.
Anyway, back to the battle of the laptops.
Person ‘A’ objects to me reclaiming the quarter of the table that goes with this seat, she holds her computing technology firmly on the table, occupying the entire space and says to me (are you ready for this) ‘I was here first’.
Fuck you love, that’s a mighty strange value system you’ve inherited from your screwed up family. Or perhaps you made it yourself.
Of course I don’t actually say these things, they merely course through my head towards the snarky bitch.
‘Why don’t we share the table, half and half?’ is what I actually say.
‘That’s not going to work is it.’ She says in what is definitely not an interrogative delivery.
‘You’ll break my laptop’, she adds as I open the lid of my Dell to 90 degrees.
‘Well, it works every other morning. Why should it not work this morning. Are you that special?’ I ask.
‘Ooh, you are a real day starter’, she said. As she retrieved her laptop back behind the halfway line – or where a halfway line would exist if one was drawn on the table.
The look on this woman’s face was pure venom; spite and hate which she punctuates with even more huffing and puffing. I put my iPod earbuds in and drown the cow out.
Oh dear. I’m so upset. 🙂
“I was here first”
!!
On my! I bet she was a spoilt only child.
What did your fellow commuters seem to make of it?
Brennig, you are officially my new public transport hero!
Such restraint, Brennig. And such class – well, excluding the stuff that you thought but didn’t say 😉 Bravo.
Oh. My. God.
I have *actual* anger bubbling up in my insides.
I would have vomitted such a litany of bad language at her that I’d have been removed from the bus. And public life. And if there were any heavy or sharp objects in reach, she would no longer be with us.
Not such a bad thing, by the sound of it. But not worth doing time for, I suspect.
Well done, oh restrained, clever one;)
Sx
Hilarious. Much more fun than merely moving on cheeky school children who try to remain seated on an over-full train.
I hope you said your piece in a cheery, over-sweet tone.
What a cow!
Glad you managed to reclaim your part of the table.
I have to say I’m impressed with your restraint because had the hatchet faced bitch greeted me with that crap first thing in the morning she’d have received both barrels of early morning grouch and no mistake. It is however a shame that when she called you a real day starter you didn’t blow her a kiss across the table, that would have really pissed her off. Or that you didn’t let her know that she should be grateful a man was starting off her day because it must be literally years since THAT last happened.
Like Soph, my blood just boiled reading that!!!! Grrrrr!!!! She would have had that laptop shoved where the…you know…if it was me!
Trixie, in retrospect I’m surprised I was so well-mannered!
Vicola, there was a moment when I thought she was going to slap me, she was so boiling up with anger. 🙂
Sally, aye. And surprisingly it all fitted on my side and on hers.
Allister, it wasn’t hilarious at the time! 🙂
Soph, having heard your (as yet unpublished) audio comment, if you’d been there she might have been very scared! lol
Jonners, it was one of those fluke occasions when my thoughts stayed in my head!
Perpetual, thanks, but I’m not sure it’s a badge I want! 🙂
Soupy, as far as our fellow travellers go, she and I might have been discussing the cricket results. 🙂