I took a train journey again recently. My conclusions were not flattering. However, as an impoversihed student and accodingly society's doormat, I am thrust into the category (completed by freaks and the unemployed) who are forced to use the darn things.
The first hurdle is that the train has to turn up. When it finally does (an average in my experience of a mere four hours late following delays and cancellations), you must reconcile your fellow passengers and the total shortage of seats. A common reaction to this is to wish the train had not turned up after all, but since you waited for it and probably have little choice about travelling, you venture cautiously onto the train. Note the fat women squidge you in their attempts to find a seat which will hold their vast behinds, and attempt to avoid their sitting on you. I suggest their Holy Grail lies in those things they use to pick up transmissions from space, of the kind you might have seen in 'Contact' and 'The Dish'.
Maybe you even get a seat - eventually, inevitably near some guy in his mid 40s listening to drum and bass or something equally tasteless loud enough so the entire carridge can hear. Or the old lady who talks insessently, with everyname they meantion being prefixed by the phrase, "Oh, but they are dead now!"
Tiring of the company you go to the (unisex) little girls' room, politely standing aside to let the usher go through the narrow door first (on her delievering lunch to the gimps in first class) with a polite "after you" which is met with a stony glare.
You get to the loo after limboing past the mountains to luggage that lies abandoned on every possible surface. The little LED says the loo is vacant, but pressing the button opens the door to reveal a fool who could not cope with pressing the button labeled 'lock'. This is despite the sign in there helpfully requesting that you, "Please remember to lock the door." Perhaps I am missing the complexity: you go in, you lock the door then you go about your business, hopefully wash your hands, easy. I have no desire whatsoever to see whatever you do or do not have down there. Yuck! Stop it! Having read and explained to the cretin the instructioncal notice on how to press the button labeled 'lock', I turn and read the emergency instructions while I wait for them to emerge.
The emergency instructions, for all their fancy diagrames and pretty colours basically say, "Hi, in the event of an accident you and your loved ones are totally and irreparably screwed. Please die quietly." I find this reasuring, but for the fact that I am also sure the fat women would somehow manage to land on me just to ensure my demise, their annoying yappy rat-dogs probably finding a role in these proceedings.
Behind me the toilet door is now open. I do not turn around because I feel the situation is embarassing enough, but does this guy? No. He says to me, "It is vacant now." I fake a half smile. I suppose it was nice that he made sure I knew. I thank him and step inside, but before I can shut the door he starts talking to me. No! I have nothing to say to you! Allow me this brief moment of solitude and physical relief!
I swear the train staff paint the facilities in human waste, there can be no other explanation and it would fit with their general demeanior. Trains suck and yet we are compelled to use them to get from A to B, having been delayed in G and broken down in Y for several hours and been overcharged for the privilege...
