Day and Night

I don't know what happens during the day but there is a huge difference in people on the long train ride home than on the ride in. Perhaps people get up on the wrong side of the bed every morning or maybe their tiny little brains don't function so early but the commute in to work is generally worse than the ride home (and that is saying a lot because the train ride is never a treat). I would deduce that I am the cause of my morning troubles if the ride home was as inane but since the ride home is vastly different, at the very least it is sufferable, my morning troubles are obviously a result of external factors.

I take the better of the two predicaments and sit against the side of the train, taking up as little space as a three hundred pound man can (I figure dealing with one person is less annoying than being bumped, elbowed, etc by people walking by). Inevitably the person who sits beside me has never met courtesy and snuggles up next to me (I barely get that close to my wife) and opens up a paper, flailing their elbows all the while. Being in cramped quarters the occasional elbow is somewhat understandable but generally the elbows fly all ride long. That isn’t the worst of it though. Like this morning, some people get aggressive and put some force behind the ‘bows as if I can magically make the wall beside me disappear and move over to give everyone the space they want.

It is never like that on the ride home and I generally take up more space going home. Even with taking up more space I receive far less elbows and bumps than I do in the mornings. Make sense to anyone else? Didn’t think so. There is the odd time when I get a ride full of elbows on the way home but those ‘bows are generally benign. Still annoying but it doesn’t reach irritating levels. The main irritant on the ride home is the noise but thankfully the iPod comes with volume control so that is not generally a huge concern.

I wish I lived in science fiction and could just 'beam' into work or perhaps use spells on people to make my commute more tolerable like in the tales of fantasy. The life of an Aes Sedai as created by the late Robert Jordan seems like a great life sometimes. (For those unfamiliar with Aes Sedai and are interested in the fantasy genre, Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series is well worth the read).