That’s Not A Headrest

My morning train takes roughly half an hour to get to Waterloo in the morning, and I am lucky enough that I am far enough down the line from London that it’s pretty much a guarantee in the morning that I will get a seat on the train. Now my preference is always to be tucked up by the window, that way you don’t have people pushing past you and I can just lean my head on the window, switch on my iPod or read my book and let the world go by.

Of course we don’t always get what we want so quite often I end up sat on the “aisle” seat of the train, exposed to the elements and more often than not only being able to sit on half of the seat thanks to the broad shouldered bloke sat next to me who thinks he has right of way and won’t budge an inch... See, so far I don’t really have an issue. The train trundles along, I read or watch something and everything is peaceful, until we get to Surbiton...

Now, the Waterloo trains from Surbiton are one of two types. Either they stop at pretty much every single stop between the two, and take a good twenty five minutes OR there’s the one that I take which stops nowhere between the two. It’s just a nice straight run of fifteen minutes and no stress. But this does mean that it is the more popular of the two trains and gets pretty packed most mornings. So everyone streams on board filling what small amount of seats might still be left, then the aisles and the open sections by the doors. What the lovely commuters appear to see when they get on though is a field of tables rather than seats with passengers.

I’ve had people resting their bags on me, leaning on me, practically sitting on me in the past. What on earth is going through their heads I have no idea! Personally if I end up standing I take every precaution to ensure I’m not touching the other passengers, because if I don’t like it when I’m sitting then they’re hardly going to be delighted if I start using their heads as a leaning post!

There was this guy once, who I see quite regularly, who was resting his bag on my shoulder. So I very politely tapped his arm and asked if he could please move it. He smirked, pointed at his earphones and said he couldn’t hear me. So I pushed the bag off me at which point he promptly put it back. Ended up standing up really fast when we arrived at Waterloo a minute or two later which obviously pitched his bag up as well, over balanced him and he landed on his arse in the middle of the train and his headphones fell out. Did remember to say “can you hear me now?” as I stepped over him and got off the train.

Simply put, we’re all crammed in these tiny little boxes running down the tracks, maybe a little consideration would improve everyone else’s day as much as people showing it to you might improve your own? And if they can’t be bothered, landing them on their arse seems to do the trick...!