Trains

Perhaps this belongs on my blog- but it's about trains and I don't think many people know about this blog so they won't think I'm a whining hussy with too much time on her hands. PLUS, I think I may possibly be the WPT's newletter editor thingo (I didn't pay close attention at AGM) so damn it I'll write what I want where I want and the only person who can stop me is probably Matt... dang it.

It was hot the other day, really hot. The air just hung in the atmosphere, too thick with flies to move. Perspiration clung to your body and trapped every microscopic piece of bacteria in your skin. The few strands of hair that could reach my neck had plastered themselves against my skin. The straps of my bag dug into my shoulders and my tongue felt like it laid thick and heavy in my mouth, and I had to catch the train.

There’s very little worse than catching the train in the sweltering heat. Air circulation is impossible and with every breath you know that you’re getting more and more intimate with the stranger sitting next to you. It’s like a one-night stand in the middle of the afternoon; you don’t know what diseases you’re picking up. It’s even worse when you get on a carriage that has leather seats and all the windows have been glued shut and the only seat available is the one that faces everyone else in the carriage, but you’d rather sit down then faint from heat exhaustion and lie on Cityrail floor. It’s disgusting.

So I slid into my seat, the two people in the aisle seats refused to shuffle over to other side so I had squeeze past them. I hit one of them over the head with the book in my hand. Accidents happen, and sometimes they don’t. I slide into the tight spot near the window and immediately begin to feel sweat accumulating on the back of my shirt. I shudder at the prospects of getting up and having sweat marks on my back. I open my book and start reading; this will take my mind of the heat.
Less than two minutes later, the train slows to a stop. All the air that was escaping through the cracks of the poorly made Cityrail demons cease and all that we had left to live for died. For whatever reason, possibly that fact that when one enters Cityrail property they immediately cease to exist on the Earth, but in an alternate universe where time means nothing and mobile phones only work for annoying people that talk too loud on the phone about what they had for breakfast, the train didn’t move for another five minutes. Too frustrated to read I decide to inspect my fellow sweltering, disease secreting passengers.

The couple. There’s always one couple on every carriage. You might not be able to see them but you can sense them. They move the whole train experience from being G to PG, as it now has ‘adult themes’. You know the ones I’m talking about, and you may be in one of these couples as I speak of them. They’re the ones that sit in each others arms and if one of them falls asleep the other will gently rub their cheek and stare out the window. And there’s nothing wrong with this. Except when the temperature outside in 35 degrees and the temperature inside is 40 degrees. All the shared closeness and shared body heat raises the ambient temperature of the carriage, you selfish people! All we want is to maintain the homeostasis in the core of our bodies. Why won’t you let us live?

Then there’s the weird guy. Okay, so there’s always a weird guy and no matter what the temperature is he’ll always be weird, but what surprises me is that it’s hot and he still thinks that if he stares at you long enough you’ll start staring back and he’ll get you number? It’s never going to happen. It’s hot and I’m sweating like a pig, and so are you. Please go away.

Okay, so maybe on this train trip there were only two main offenders of my personal space and atmospheric hygiene, but on every other train ride there are at least three or four more. From the lady with mullet who starts giving you tips on how to steal stuff from department stores, to the security guards that try to pick you up, the 14 year-old boys smoking pot in between carriages and the father that yells at his daughters and tells them they’re stupid. There are so many dysfunctional people in this world, and they all catch trains, and their imperfections are amplified in the sweltering heat of a Wednesday afternoon. One day I’m going to... Oh who am I kidding? I need Cityrail just as much as all those weirdos and psychos. I guess if you can’t beat them you might as well join them. Next heat wave I’m on a train, I’m going to fall asleep on the person sitting next to me and fart very loudly when air circulation has ceased.