Last Thursday I was travelling to work on the Central Line with a considerable hangover. Aside from feeling and probably looking rather worse for wear I was pretty much behaving myself in line with my own tube etiquette.
The tube was becoming more and more packed as we neared central London. I was standing in between the two rows holding on to the pillar in the middle. About halfway into the journey my handbag started slipping off my shoulder and so I shrugged it back on so not to drop it on the floor. Unfortunately, I accidentally bumped the lady next to me.
I was pretty unprepared for the venom unleashed.
The woman whipped round and started laying into me. I was so shocked, and hungover, that I only really remember clipped bits of what she was saying. I think the fact that I didn’t react for so long just made her worse as she then said that I ‘obviously did it on purpose as she had bumped into me accidentally earlier’ and that I had kept looking at her and done it back and this was a much more aggressive bump…
I genuinely had no idea what she was talking about. In my hungover trance-like state I hadn’t even registered her presence until I unwittingly whacked her with my handbag and jerky arm. But, in her head, it transpired we’d been secretly battling handbag space for the whole journey.
I really didn’t know what to say to her and so mumbled back ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about' and went back into trance mode. I don’t even remember whether the other passengers in the carriage reacted to this debacle which is a shame because I’d love to have known if they were as shocked as I am by this strange angry woman or whether they had noticed her getting wound up and unhinged.
This got me thinking - it’s funny how people wind themselves up in their own heads and convince themselves that something is happening when it isn’t.
I started to wonder if I did that myself and then my head hurt and I stopped.
Then I realised the only morals to come out of this story are don’t take your obvious anger management issues out on strangers on the tube and, most importantly, if you see someone that is in a trance and unable to speak – perhaps it’s best to assume a hangover and leave well alone.
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