DOES your journey to work every day mean spending time with people you’d otherwise avoid like the plague? You’ll be familiar with these.
A colleague
During the 30-minute bus journey between your house and work you put headphones on and ignore the dickheads who populate the world. The last thing you want is the chatty young marketing assistant who’s just joined your office sitting down next to you and making your work hell start half an hour early.
Your old school bully
You thought you’d escaped this absolute bastard when you left school and yet by a horrible quirk of fate here he is on the train every single morning. He still laughs and shouts ‘Alright, ginger pubes?’ each day, as if being persecuted by him for five years was a fun lark and not something that has traumatised you forever.
A one-night stand
You drunkenly shagged this woman from your office years ago, but it didn’t end well. The disdainful look she gives you on a daily basis suggests she wasn’t impressed with your performance, nor regarding it as water under the bridge and having a bit of jolly commuter camaraderie about the state of public transport these days. Awkward.
The local nutter
A bus is as good a place to be a nutter as anywhere. Unfortunately the man known locally as Mad Tony has chosen to sit next to you. You’d move, but there’s nowhere else to sit and it’d be rude when he’s in full flow about ‘transmitters’ and how the World Economic Forum controls everything. To be honest, you’re finding it a bit hard to follow, partly because he’s mad, and partly because you’re busy praying you’ll get to work before he starts on Jews.
Someone you really fancy
There’s a gorgeous woman on the tram who you just know is hilarious, intelligent and your soulmate, even though all she’s ever said to you is ‘Can you move that bag, please?’. Unfortunately you’ve got a bit carried away with the sexual side of this fantasy relationship that will absolutely never happen, and you have to get off at your stop crouched over like Quasimodo.
