Traffic jam on the way home.
A mother plonked her shiny-haired toddler down on the seat beside me, while she sat behind. He wriggled and writhed and fiddled with my handbag, tickled my thigh and squeezed the side of my breast, behind my bicep. I put up with it because he was under three.
In the seat in front, a woman with an SW accent had a protracted conversation with a friend, which over the course of 800 metres and about 20 minutes of slow moving traffic, covered topics as diverse as:
- Santorini
- Australians
- Nurses
- Sandy bikini bottoms
- Teachers
- Dublin
- Various weddings
- Septicemia
- New job
- Hospital bugs
- Stoke Newington
- Poor manners
- Barnes bars
- Hangovers
- The funeral of a friend
- Ex-boyfriends from hell
- Traffic
- Other people on the bus
- hair products
This list is by no means exhaustive.
I only paid any attention to what she was saying because
a) she was talking very loudly on a very quiet bus, and it was hard not to
b) I’d left my phone (and thereby radio) in the office
c) I was astounded that people actually have such long and interesting and wide-ranging phone calls. My mobile calls tend to start and end with “I’ll be home in a bit; shall I get some milk?”
d) the small glossy-haired child on the seat beside me was going
BA-BAAAH
BA-BAAAH
BA-BAAAH
BA-BAAAH
BA-BAAAH
BA-BAAAH
BA-BAAAH
BA-BAAAH
BA-BAAAH
BA-BAAAH
BA-BAAAH
BA-BAAAH
BA-BAAAH
all the way down the road.
His father, incidentally, sat five rows in front, did not turn around once.
