the bewildered and the damned
Feeling you haven’t so much beat the system but you have at least poked it in the eye can really make your day – little moments where you feel ever so slightly ahead of the game.

Missing trains fascinates me. If I’m on the train sitting waiting for it to trundle off and a group of commuters miss it, if it’s in a busy station there is a very visible and collective reaction of ‘awfirfucksake’ quickly followed by ‘fine, so it’s a ten minute wait, see if I care’. However a lone traveler at a quiet outlying station missing a train becomes a tragedy of epic proportions. Maybe its because there’s usually a much longer wait for the next train, or maybe if your on your own its suddenly ‘your train’ the only hope. One of my favorite Fast Show skits showed a family desperately battering along in holiday attire dragging bags and cases –nothing was ever explained, no resolution was offered, nor required. As much as I could identify with their plight I was also happy to mock.

Aside from the schadenfreude (oh come on – you could be the nicest person alive but there is a certain smug pleasure in sitting on the very train some sad tardy schmuck has just missed. It’s the same as seeing someone in a suit soaked by a lorry rampaging through a puddle).

I used to commute from a wee rural station in Lanark to Glasgow. I’m always late. Maybe not so much late but I tend to cut it finer and finer until finally the luck runs out. There’s another small pleasure – strolling onto a train just as the doors start beeping. “Fuck yeah I’m cool” Although to be honest it was more often a very undignified dash where only the victory steps were strolled. Adults shouldn’t run. Not unless there are trophies involved. Particularly if you are in any way overweight or out of shape or are carrying a bag. You just look like a tit.

Over time I noticed there are three basic types of missed train melodramas.

1. Injustice: “How could this happen?” (The doors are sealed and its pulling away) “Oh no it can’t be true – all is lost” coupled with a look of tragic bewilderment.

2. Denial: “NO! You utter bastard – you DEFINITELY saw me and deliberately left ahead of schedule.” Minor tantrum ensues on platform. Letters of complaint are drafted.

3. Blame: “Oh well fucking done! You knew what time you had to be here and you fucked it up. Can’t even get on a bloody train on time. Well fucking thank you”.

Which brings me to my point. One day I dashed up the escalators to the low level trains at Argyle Street in Glasgow – is it just me or is it odd you descend one escalator then have to go back up another escalator to get to the platform?

I heard the doors beeping as I got to the top of the escalator. There was a throng of Denials and a few Blamers in front of me. The doors had started to close. The Injustice brigade had already started looking to each other for some sense to it all. A few had already begun tying yellow ribbons around the benches.

Not today I thought! I pushed through the fallen and bewildered and grabbed the closing doors. They didn’t stop closing.

Fuck.

Determined, I hopped onto the doorstep and for some reason began to Samson style, heave the doors apart. Suddenly I was a superhero tearing open an impregnable vault – steel plate ripping apart like wet paper. The smug brigade on the train mere inches from my face looked at me through the door windows wryly.

“Daft fucker’s missed his train”

But then a marvelous thing – the doors gave up. Folded, or more so unfolded. As I casually stepped into the newly conquered carriage, the doors snapped shut behind, leaving the bewildered and the damned on the platform – excluded and bereft.

In true Glasgow style a bloke casually turned to me and said:

“So how do you get aff mate – through the roof?”

That day I was (slightly) ahead!
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 12:38, 7 replies)

awesome read :)
And yes soo true "There’s another small pleasure – strolling onto a train just as the doors start beeping. “Fuck yeah I’m cool” gets a click from me :)
(Boom- Clicks on NSFW links at work., Fri 11 Feb 2011, 13:55, closed)

I dont know why
but as soon as I read 'Lanark to Glasgow', I started reading in a scottish accent in my head. Thanks for that.
(Eggstrovert isnt patronising you...honest..., Fri 11 Feb 2011, 14:13, closed)

Love it
a woman tried that yesterday getting off the train, by jamming her head and upper body through the gap and then trying to wriggle through. a tiny part of me wanted her to get stuck, but those damn elf and safety people have made train doors less deadly than they should be...
(ElectricSexPants would like to be the Sultan of something, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 14:31, closed)

What I love is...
...the way people change from a frantic run to a nonchalant trot, when they realise that they really have missed it, their body language desperately attempting to say, "Well, I didn't really want to catch it anyway..."
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 16:49, closed)

This is me.
More often than I care to admit.
( Ugi , it's a game of give and cake, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 17:24, closed)

I had the opposite happen to me several years ago
I was on a trip down to London from where I lived in Suffolk. My friends and I had just got on the train and were getting ready for it to leave when I suddenly realised I had left my sandwiches in a bag on the platform. "No big deal" I thought. "I'll just nip out and get them". I got up out of my seat and walked to the doors... which, to my horror, slid closed just as I reached them. No amount of stabbing the 'open' button would make them spring apart again, and I had to resign myself to a long, hungry journey as the train slid slowly out of the station with my lunch still forlornly in position in the middle of a bench. It was gone when we got back.


The look of sadness on my face didn't stop everyone in the carriage (suited and booted businessmen as well as all my friends) pissing themselves with laughter at the sight.
( MatJ LOOK, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 22:39, closed)

Brilliant
the last line made me proper laugh out loud.
( Laird Dave Draws Now charges to take off his clothes., Sat 12 Feb 2011, 21:21, closed)