42510 – 18:00 Friday 3rd October

42510

A little of a misleading title here because my journey on 42510, a Carriage E on the 18:00 service to Bristol Temple Meads was absolutely as uneventful as a non-event in a plain white box filled with nothing.

But my journey on the Frome service (in Carriage 42217 a duplicate from the 5th of August) was something of a conundrum because Carriage 42217 is a Carriage C and that means it has the big toilet with the funny flip-up seats outside it.

I chose to sit in one of them today which isn’t something I would normally do because it not only means you’re in the way of disembarking people but you also look like a garden gnome pervert with a fetish for toilet goers because your nose ends up almost rubbing against the automatic sliding toilet door. But anyway there I was minding my own business like any self respecting garden gnome pervert until as we left Theale I realised that I had a choice to make……

I could see other Thatcham regulars in Carriage C and I knew that they had seen me but if I now got up early and stood by the door, it would look like I was one of the #EarlyStanderWankers who plague the journey into London. These are the people who start getting their things together and causing a disturbing kerfuffle even before we’ve reached Old Oak Common and it’s all in a valiant attempt to just be one of the first off the carriage. I mean, the very very earliest you should be standing is round about Westbourne Studios and if you’re getting up around Royal Oak or the Crossrail works then, please, be my guest, even I’m usually putting on my jacket around there, but honestly, if you’re packing away your laptop or banging up the little table and we’re still outside Pall Mall Deposit then you’re a tosser…..period. In fact you’re worse than a tosser, you’re an #EarlyStanderWanker

But on the other hand, if I left it late and waited until there was a queue formed around the door then when I got up I would basically “push in front” of half the queue because half the queue would be round my funny flip-up seat. Which surely would make me a #PushInWanker ?

So what did I do when faced with such a dilemma?

I did what any self respecting commuter would. I got up early but hid in the vestibule of Carriage B so no-one saw me.

Well, what else could I have done? At least I avoided being an #EarlyStanderWanker……

…..or a #PushInWanker.