Random Commuter Observations

One of the regulars at my metro stop in the morning is a guy who power-walks his way to the station. You know the sort of thing - one foot touching the ground at all times while he flails his arms and gyrates his body in order to get maximum propulsion. (Just as an aside, I think this is one of the silliest and aesthetically most grotesque forms of exercise ever devised by Man.) Once he gets down on to the platform, he occupies himself while waiting for the train with a series of leg swings and other exercises. The guy's about six foot five, with long, gangly arms and legs, so he takes up an awful lot of room.

As you can imagine, on a boiling hot and humid morning like today, the guy is in a pretty damned disgusting state by the time the train appears, and he usually does very little, if anything, to clean himself up. I am always careful to stay far away from him, but this is rush hour, after all, and somebody eventually winds up having to stand near him. Sometimes very near, indeed.

I feel very sorry for those poor people.