The umbrella incident

So yesterday afternoon in London it rained. And it rained properly. Constant rain from about 4pm to 7pm.

Now this was around the time I went to go home and catch my train. Thankfully I had my umbrella so wasn’t going to get wet. I walked one of the girls at work to the bus stop because she didn’t have an umbrella as I was being nice and not letting her get wet. Then I walked to the train station and waited for my train.

The first train was really super busy and I didn’t actually manage to get on it as it was that full. So I waited for the next train and successfully boarded that. This was also busy and I had to stand in the isle for the first few stops.

Now on account of standing and walking around in the rain, my umbrella was wet, and I mean seriously wet, it was soaked and I wanted to stash it somewhere in my bag so it wasn’t in the way and I could read my book. So I didn't soak my bag I shook the umbrella gently in the same direction of the isle I was standing in and quite low down so I didn’t splash anyone sitting down. This clearly didn’t work as an oldish man in a stuffy tweed jacket scowled at me so mouthed a sorry, stopped shaking my umbrella and mused on what to do with it.

Anyhow, meanwhile, the train did its pre-moving engine roar so I turned around to hold on to the seat in front of me as I was facing backwards at this point. I turned round via the direction of the guy in the tweed jacket I had just lightly splashed and as I moved past him my umbrella for no apparent reason issued forth a little stream of water, a little unbroken spurt about a second long that made a perfect trail down this guys trousers. Totally randomly.

Now this was pretty funny. Not only had this guy visually chastised me already and I had said a quiet sorry, but this was like 20 times worse and the look he gave me was priceless. I mean where the hell had this little spurt of water come from? Anyhow I couldn’t face the guy, principally because I had a smirk on my face, so I turned around and looked down the train.

Now this is where it gets worse, the middle aged lady on the opposite side of the isle had watched this whole exchange and then caught my eye. She looked at me, smiled, I grinned back like an idiot and then we both burst into giggles in the middle of the train carriage, all of this made worse by the fact that we couldn’t let the guy with the wet pants catch us because he would be like so mad and also the rest of the train would think we were nuts too. Which made it all the funnier (this is known as commuter camaraderie and it doesn't happen very often).

And the moral of this post is that you can be a quiet menace on a crowded train to individuals because the consequences to you are minimal. But if the victim complained he would draw the most attention and thus embarrassment from the hundred or so other people in ear-shot and then he would be the troublemaker.