An Angry Little London Commuter

Today, I officially became a commute hater. Of course, in the last 4-5 years, I’ve had a very love-hate relationship with public transport, as do most people who use it every day, but I thought I’d solved the problem. I gave up my tube travelcard in favour of a bus pass – less commuters, less stress, less packed tight spaces, I thought. It’ll be much better! And it is, sometimes, quite relaxing to head to work on the bus. 

But not today.

I sit in the back corner of the bus, because I’m often the first one on, it has enough knee space for my tall person legs, and people rarely sit next to me.

Unfortunately, I’d not been there more than two stops when the worst kid ever sat right next to me. Despite having another seat where he could have sat next to his mother. Seriously this kid was an ass. He was probably about 5, and spent the entire 30 minute bus ride bucking, smacking me, pushing me with his head, and shrieking. By this point, the rest of the bus had people in it, so it wasn’t easy to move, and the principle of the thing – this child had plenty of room, why was he trying to use me as a boxing bag?

The mum was mortified of course at her 5 year old beating me up, but she did very little to stop it. I even asked him to stop – a grown up stranger asking me to stop something would have scared me into submission when I was little, but not this little monster – just kept on! Not even sure he heard me!

Finally, when he got up to leave, I thought I was free to enjoy the short rest of my commute, to de-stress myself, but alas, this was not to be the case. A woman sat down right next to me (again, there was a space in the middle, PEOPLE, USE THE MIDDLE SEAT!!) and started doing her makeup, elbowing me repeatedly in the process. Granted, I am very much a ‘save sleep by doing makeup on the bus’ advocate, but I sit in the back corner, so I don’t bother people with it. Just because we are both doing the same thing, doesn’t mean I want you in my personal space!

Of course, there was traffic, and it was raining, and I ended up being like 15 minutes late for work.

  

But it didn’t end there, oh no!! As I got off the bus, I started sprinting for the office, but was stopped by another commuter. When I took out my headphones, I realised he was hitting on me. At 9:10 on a Wednesday, he thought the way to get a date would be to stop an OBVIOUSLY LATE girl, making her think she’s dropped something, to chat her up. Not to mention I am at least half his age.

GOD, PEOPLE today!!!

I hope tomorrow will be better. It’d better be, because I’ve got at least one more year of this silly commuting business. I look forward to the day I can drive to work again. I used to LOVE driving around in my little car, way too fast if I was late, with my music blaring… oh well, I guess for now I’m stuck being an angry commuter!

(Rant over)