feeling listless

Commuter Life It’s the almost familiarity. You get the same buses, the same trains, and between looking out of the window and reading your newspaper, you probably know more about how they look and they do. They’re your ‘commuting buddies’ – those people you see every day and you know them by sight (and will do for years to come) but you’ll never actually know them, unless...

A packed train meant I ended up sitting next to one of my commuting buddies tonight. It wasn’t awkward, so much as there being a general unspoken, ‘Oh hello, I know you…’ But for whatever reason I wasn’t going to leave it at that - I always get a bit freaky after my work shift.

The guard started it. The usual announcement throughout the carriages end with this tirade: “Any passengers sitting in the First Class carriage without valid tickets will have to pay the surplass” (I’m paraphrasing). I out loud said:
“I hope you can back that up!”, and she said:
“Probably can’t…” Then we both continued reading…then I asked her:
“Can I ask you a strange question?”
I think she said, yes or if you want.
”How is it?” I offered enigmatically.
”What? The travelling?”
She knew what I meant, and we talked all the way to Liverpool, covering all of the topics such conversations do (travel, work, politics, films – basically all the sections of The Guardian). I think I wigged her with my enthusiasm for this weblog – which was cheesy, but placed me in the weird position of now writing about my day, about meeting someone who’s now going to be reading what I’ve written about her (hey Clare – is that with or without an 'i'?). The bottom-line is, it was easy – once I’d flown over the difficult bit of starting the conversation it turned out we had a lot in common and now we might have someone to talk to on the way to work, if our books are boring.