Up Your Nose

Now I’m all for alternative lifestyles.  Why, sometimes, I even buy porridge oats instead of Weetabix for my breakfast.  But I do object to having nihilism rammed down my throat.  There must be some demo going on Up North because tonight’s train was full of, I think the term is, Crusties.  Now I don’t mind the piercings (except when they’re in front of me at airport security) and I actually like the fabulously offensive tattoos (that always make my mother remark - ‘What will they look like when they’re old?’)  I can’t comment on the clothing given some of the appalling rags I troll around in.  And I’m green with envy for their hair and the fantastically ornate dreadlocks though I spend so much time shaking my head I’d suffer permanent lash marks if I were blessed with such tresses.  What made me and most of the rest of the carriage uncomfortable tonight was the smell.  Now, I smell.  Sometimes.  After a hot journey, on those rare occasions when I do something arduous and physical or when I’m playing some game or other.  And there was that 46-day trek through the jungle to escape the Colombian drug lords when I didn’t change my socks once but, generally, my stench is not a lifestyle choice.  But this man, I think it was a man, reeked.  He had that horrible long-unwashed pong about him: the smell of fusty clothes that sinks to the base of your lungs and stays there like mustard gas in the trenches.  It was a pervasive and fetid perfume.  Of course, no-one acknowledged it in anyway, although the businessman sitting beside him did shrink away as much as the seats in Chicken Class allowed, though quietly, as if he were slumping into slumber and the girl opposite developed a surprising cold and spent the journey sniffing through her tissue.

As I was leaving, I heard him, somewhat unconvincingly answer the unasked question to the remaining occupants: ‘It’s these trainers.  They make my feet sweat.’

Comments

[Mrs RW]

At times like this, don't you wish you had the nerve to say "Dude, you'd knock a buzzard off a shit wagon! Do us all a favor and get off at the next stop!"

[Carlton]

Mrs RW, I must confess, its a phrase that you don't hear too often over here but given it made me laugh out loud, I will endeavour to use it everyday from now on.

[Mrs RW]

Sometimes the picturesque phrase is the only way to go...