I can almost never have a normal train journey. Every time I'm on a train, I'm pretty much guaranteed a show of some kind, from having to sit next to a weirdo (and I mean weirdo as in unpleasantly strange this time, not endearingly strange), to witnessing something amazing. This by far is one of my favourites so far.
I was on my way back from visiting Birmingham, in which a good percentage of my friends live (I studied at university there and lived there for five years in total). I had a double seat to myself, there were no screaming children or people playing music loudly on their mobile phones, and all was well.
About an hour into the journey, a huge towering guy with a thick Jamaican accent and rastacap hat (and clearly stoned
legless by the smell of him) came slowly staggering down the aisle, laboriously grabbing the backs of the seats as he went along to keep himself upright. This is it, I thought, this is going to be one of my moments, I know it- he's going to come over and talk to me, and probably sit next to me. However although this sort of thing does happen to me, I was wrong this time- because just as this guy reached my row of seats, the ticket inspector came.
The ticket inspector gave a polite 'excuse me' to the stoner, but it was no use: he
wouldn't budge. Now a little annoyed, the inspector asked to see his ticket. This is where it gets good.
Stoner dude nodded and loudly slurred 'I will do
magic for you'. He procured what looked like a bingo scoresheet from his back pocket, did a few grand hand gestures, made it disappear, and made it reappear under his hat (to his credit, it was
a good trick). The conductor made him buy a real ticket after some
argument from stoner dude, who clearly regarded his bingo sheet as a proper ticket. The inspector, his job now done as far as he was concerned, tried to move on- it was then that stoner dude grabbed his arm in an affectionate bear hug and declared 'I'm never letting go!'
When the inspector managed to
shake himself free, he quite speedily retreated backwards, to which
stoner dude called after him with genuine concern: 'Hey mister ticket
man, you're going the wrong way!' He then laughed himself silly for a
full minute, stared silently at something on the ceiling for another,
then made his way back down the train, all the while clinging for dear
life onto the seats to stay upright.
It was brilliant, my face was red from
trying not to laugh, especially at the Britishness of the people around
in the carriage trying to pretend that the whole thing just wasn't happening!
I doubt this will be the only weird train story I post here- but it's certainly going to be hard to beat.
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