Met another unhappy commuter this morning while waiting at the station for the 8-47 A.M. train, and standing next to a twenty something who's talking into his mobile phone with that irritating habit of raising his voice to the point of shouting. The person he was talking to was named 'BABE' I'm assuming, because it was 'BABE' this or that, and at one point he made a show of his use of 'BABE' by drawing it out something like, 'bbbbbbbbbbbbaaaaaaaaaaaabbbbbbbbbbbbbeeeee eeeeeeee' similar to some pretentious fuckwit's use of the word 'Darl' while kissing friend and foe alike lightly on the cheek at some fashion show that's exhibiting the 'next big thing' and his or her work. The telephonic conversation finished, he fumbles lighting another PJ extra mild, and then has the audacity to ask me "Do you have the time.. (pregnant pause) .chief ?". Chief ? I think not little man. Why not just go the full distance and call me 'buddy', 'ace' or 'captain' (yes a grotty little man once had the gall to call me that).

I fixed him with the look, looked down at my watch, looked back at him and back at my watch........and said "No" with an air of finality before returning to another badly written human interest story in the morning newspaper, that was wedged between ads promising 'WEIGHT LOSS!' through some miracle technique like amputating your legs. He wasn't impressed and called me 'fuckwit' under his breath. I stood, turned (he was still sitting, so it gave me the male animal kingdom advantage of 'a bigger cock is a better cock'), stared from behind my black rimmed glasses, through his eye sockets and an in an unemotional tone that had just the slightest hint of malice said "Sorry?". Chances were he was about to be. He up and left for the safety that the first carriage would afford him. I went back to my newspaper.