Tram Ettiquette
I've been too run down (and cold) in the mornings during the last few weeks to bother riding my bike to college, so I've been catching the tram instead. It's been fine... except for Thursday morning this week. I had the displeasure of encountering one of those "you loser" people who I'm sure has annoyed another 40 people on trams since.
Demographic: Female, mid to late 50s. Business attire.
If I don't stand up on the tram (which is actually a really good idea if you're about to spend 4 hours in lectures and chapel) , I normally sit somewhere close to the back, with my backpack on my back and my legs out in the aisle, such that I'm not in anyone's way and I don't have to nurse my bag or have it kicking around people's feet. For those unaccustommed to Melbourne trams, they generally have blocks of bench seats on either side of the aisle. Two people per bench seat in an ideal world, facing another two people. (The 'facing another two people' first thing in the morning is another reason why I sit facing the aisle.)
Anyway, I'm pretty good at picking my spot and not getting in anyone's way, so if you're thinking that I'm about to get told off for my feet then guess again. Tram lady gets on the tram and walks over to where I'm sitting. "Excuse me." She wants to sit on the bench seat that I'm perched on - on the window side. That means I have to take my bag off, which is fair enough... so I put it on my lap, continuing to face my anti-social non-morning-person direction.
Now, here's the bit where she started to annoy me. You know how you have that 'personal space' thing on public transport where if you're unfortunate enough to have to sandwich with strangers, you do the best you can to minimise all forms of body contact such that both of you pretend it isn't happening. Well, there is absolutely no way this woman's butt was that freaking big. She just plops her butt dead centre of the bench seat, applying so much of that 'unnecessary body contact' force to my lower back that I assume I'm further back than my half of the seat.
So, being the considerate and experienced public transport user that I am, I shuffled further towards the aisle, bag on lap, in the hope of giving myself some space. What do you reckon she does? Yeah. She laps up the room and butt-wriggles her flabby thigh (for a non-really-fat-in-the-first-place person) back into my already unhappy back. There I perch, on what was 1/4 of my socially accepted half of the bench seat. Oh well. Only another 5 minutes and I don't really want to stand up today.
Then she starts hacking up her guts with one of those chesty, phlegm-ridden I'm-really-sick-and-I'm-trying-to-infect-the-whole-country type of coughs, about twice in 30 seconds. When the second coughing wave came I really quickly got up and headed up to the other end of the tram... but she was probably either too stupid to get the message, or just happy to be able to avail her ample posterior to the remainder of my seat.
Still, I walked away with a sweet sense of satisfaction, thinking to myself "I'm going to blog about this!"
6 Comments:
*laughs*
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Well, how bout this? The first part of the story is simply to amuse people. I was travelling to work on the tram the other week and was seated on the window side of the bench seat with a guy opposite me and another guy sat down next to him. I got up to validate my ticket at a moment when the tram was supposed to be stationary. To my embarrassment as I headed back to my seat the tram lurched forward and I fell on these two unsuspecting young men and had to apologise for my landing on them. They didn't seem too perturbed. So, on goes the journey. People get on, people get off and another guy gets on sitting opposite me one space over. Out of the corner of my eye he seemed to be staring at me. Now, I know I'm good looking...but not that good looking. Hehehe. So I refuse to make eye contact. He continues to stare and I try to block him out with assistance from my iPod. Then to my amazement, he shoves my leg with his. I ignore it, then he does it again. I pretend to clear my throat in a sort of "excuse me, do you mind" type of way. He knees me even harder. This probably would've scared me once upon a time but I've encountered worse so I crossed my arms and continued to look out the window. The weirdo got off soon after that but what the heck?
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Nelley this is exactly what I mean about communicating where the boundary is. The first knee could have been an accident, the second a coincidence... but the third one should have encouraged you to make a huge scene and make sure that the whole tram knew he was a freak out.
If you are in those situations be loud and make sure they KNOW to back off. Clearing your throat like a passive little slug is never going to get you anywhere. You never seem to have a problem telling me where to go. Start doing it to people who actually have it coming!
Since we're all sharing our train etiquette stories...a few weeks ago the trains were delayed because of signal malfunction. So finally my train comes and of course it's packed because it's basically carrying 2-3 train's worth of passengers. Naturally, because of my luck, I get stuck right against the door between a little Asian dude and a foul smelling, unhygenic man who is a little too close for comfort but that may have been because it was so overcrowded. So anyway, the little Asian dude starts tapping me. I turn to him and he tells me to move further down so he can get into the aisle. I politely tell him that there is no room to move but he decides to push me anyway. Of course, I go straight into the smelly man on my right (eew) but the little man persists. Normally I would continue to be polite but stern, however, I'd had a bad day and I wasn't getting any happier. So I tell him straight, "Look mate there's no room ok? The next stop is in a few minutes so we can move then." The little man wasn't very happy and starts yammering something in another language at me. Luckily the smelly man came to my rescue and told the little dude to wait because there is no room. So thank you smelly man.
What is worse is that my train ride only got worse. At the next stop I stood off the train (as I was right against the door and people behind me had to get out) and waited to let people out before I got back in. Wouldn't you know it, the little dude (who is off the train and is behind me) pushes passed me and scurries back onto the train so that he can move into the aisle. Some people. Fine. But then I almost did not get back onto the train because everyone behind me bagan pushing through without first allowing me to get back on. Hello? I was on the train first! Where are people's manners? So naturally, because I'm such a lucky person (not) I end up spending the rest of my train ride stuck against the door. Again. Next to the smelly man. Again. (yeah he helped me out but he still smelt really bad) Pressing against strange men. Again.
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