Unfortunately, yesterday, I had to travel to work earlier than usual and so hit the worst of the rush hour.
I got on the bus as usual, except that it was full downstairs. I could have sworn that I had seen empty seats from the road, but recognise that this can be an illusion. A man of fifty was stood on the stairs so I asked him whether there were seats upstairs , he shrugged and said he didn't know. His face said he didn't care. I went upstairs, accidentally standing on his foot, and discovered a dozen empty seats.
Almost identical thing happened at Vauxhall bus station, except that this time the man in question was mid-thirties. Again I asked the question, he replied with studied indifference. This time I am confident I looked at him in contempt, but, even so, when I went upstairs and discovered that there were a dozen or so empty seats, I sorely regretted that I had not called him a moron. In both cases, their me-me-me attitude was causing the bus to be illegally overfull downstairs, and unlikely to stop to pick up more passengers at the next stop. I actually don't mind standing, if it's a choice between that and waiting for the next bus, but I resent having to stand as a direct result of the selfishness of arseholes when there are free seats.
In the evening I was at the Royal Opera House. More precisely, the cloakroom. Oh god. It's basically a reception desk in a narrow corridor, which, with the best will in the world would be utterly congested because of the scrum of people, some going into collect and others coming away from collecting. But we are not talking about the best will in the world. We are talking about a bunch of arrogant tossers in the expensive seats who probably don't have the slightest idea about the opera they have been to see, know nothing of its composer and probably only have a vague awareness of the playwright on whose work it was based (Macbeth). Having collected their coats they stand around having their inane conversations about...what...certainly not about the three hours they have just spent, except perhaps for the thirty minutes of the interval.
I actually think it is a Health and Safety Risk. A few months ago, someone had an epileptic fit in that scrum. Last night I happened to be behind a man on crutches, so I inched slowly forward with him, and became increasingly incredulous as snotty cow/bastard shoved him. I could take it no more, and exclaimed "Don't you realise there's a chap on crutches here you've just nearly knocked over..."
Me and my big gob, he turned to smile in some relief, and commented that if anyone were to fall over his crutches, it would be his fault. My big gob must have worked, because a passage cleared, for him, and because we were now in conversation it would have been churlish for me not to take advantage. Even so, one man said "Oh I'm just hovering here for someone else..." to which I snarled "Perhaps not the cleverest thing you've done all day..."
But it is a sort of proof of karma. I honestly did not have my own interests at heart, only to the extent that I didn't want this chap being pushed off balance onto me. But by making a bit of a fuss actually on someone else's behalf, I inadvertently benefitted. But what really annoyed me was that, because I was in the cheapest of cheap seats, the Slips, I had no need to have left my coat at the cloakroom, having plenty of stowage space behind my seat. I noticed that most of my immediate neighbours brought their coats with them.
I find it mentally exhasting having to be so assertive, to fight against people lacking in basic common sense and a fantastic view of their own smug importance.
