Take this morning, for example. It was cold but sunny when I left home, plodding along the country roads at a gentle pace towards the train station because for once in my life I wasn't running late. The train wasn't too crowded when it arrived (almost on time, too) and although there were no seats available there was plenty of standing room. I found a spot in the aisle, which is my favourite trick because that leaves me favourably placed in case someone who has a seat gets off at one of the outlying stations. On occasion I have been fortunate enough to not have to stand for the full 40-minute train journey.
So there I was, unhurried and stress-free, my MP3 player blaring sweetly in my ears, when movement from one of the seated passengers caught my eye. I really need to pay more attention to my surroundings, people. The two seats next to which I was standing were occupied by a guy and a girl, who I'd estimate to be in their very early twenties at the most. She was all in black, with her rather jelly-like boobs almost falling out of her top. Not something I wanted to spend too much time looking at. The movement, however, was coming from her companion, a little blonde-haired fella with blue eyes, also dressed in black, and flapping some sort of red scarf - sorry, bandana would probably be more accurate - around. To attract attention, obviously. He was looking at me, daring me to.. I don't know what. He seemed to be expecting some kind of confrontation. Instead, I gave him a wink, like a mother might give to a wilful child. He acknowledged this and turned back around. It was then that the smell of beer wafted up from his girlfriend's can to my nostrils. Pleasant odour, so early in the morning. I shifted position so I was facing away from them but I wasn't going to move away just because they were there, or just to avoid a situation. I may have mentioned this before: I don't like bullies. And I refuse to be intimidated. But at the same time, I'm not easily inclined to provoke an unpleasant situation.
{sigh} Unfortunately not everyone has the same attitude. About 10 minutes along the tracks our bandana-waving youngster must have decided he wasn't getting enough attention, or perhaps he is uncomfortable with the special kind of lazy silence that is typical of the morning commuter train, because all of a sudden I could no longer hear my MP3-player music because it was being drowned out by some ghetto / rap crap blasting out of said scumbag's ghetto-blaster. (I don't know if they still call them that but it certainly fits the situation.) Now, I while I realise there are some people who enjoy that sort of 'music' but quite frankly I find it offensive to hear a stream of bad language being bellowed out to a tuneless 'doof-doof-doof-yo' first thing in the morning. I'm sure most of my fellow passengers felt the same, judging by the look on their faces.
But... nobody said anything. They all just sat or stood there in agony and let this young asshole act out like a spoilt child.
See this is where I tend to get myself in trouble because I get REALLY pissed off when someone invades my space in any way.
So I took my one earphone out, leaned over and said (nicely, I might add, and without any filthy looks), "Would you turn that down a bit, please?"
I though the woman standing next to me was going to fall over and the rest of the passengers in the carriage looked at me with something approaching horror.
You know what happened next?
I put my earphone back in my ear and turned around again. And he turned down the volume.
And I wanted to shout at my fellow passengers: "Grow a pair, you spineless twits! He's one small spoilt brat - why do you let him treat you like this?!"
But I kept quiet and continued doing my best to ignore the young couple.
Which was going well right up until the bit where the man and his daughter sitting opposite them got up to leave the train two stops later.
What a dilemma! Here were two empty seats, and about twenty people standing in the carriage, who would normally just about step on each others' heads to get a seat. But because the seats were opposite the two young lushes, nobody made a move.
Nobody except me, that is. I figured, why should I stand for the next twenty minutes if I didn't have to?
So I went and sat down opposite these two, still listening to my MP3 player, and turned my head to watch the countryside speed by past the window. Not long afterwards an elderly woman and her husband moved down and she sat next to me, with he standing next to her with a protective hand on her shoulder.
By now the young oxygen-waster was bored again so he once more turned up the volume on his noise-maker, and once again everyone around just looked pained, but said nothing. I gave him one filthy look then turned my head again to ignore him, which I did successfully for the rest of the journey.
He turned it down after a while when he realised he wasn't getting a reaction.
And in the end, I almost felt I was as bad as the rest of the passengers, just letting this boy get away with anti-social behaviour. But there were a few things that stopped me doing or saying anything further:
One: my husband's voice in my head saying, "He's just trying to get a rise out of you. Don't give him the satisfaction."
Two: the fact that they had both been drinking and we all know that trying to reason with a drunk person is like trying to convince a woman with PMS that chocolate is a bad thing.
Three: fantasizing about smashing his head repeatedly against the window until he stopped. Just stopped.
And in the end, I did get some form of satisfaction: When he eventually realised that I wasn't going to react in any way, he picked an argument with his girlfriend instead, and by the time they left the train the people whose day had been spoiled the most was theirs.
Karma, people, karma. You get what you give.
