Now normally in a typically English way we sort it out, everyone coming up tucks themselves over to one side to make way for any late comers to scuttle down to catch their train. This happened the other morning, I was squeezing down through a narrow corridor everyone had helpfully made, K trailing in my wake.
"Scuse me...Scuse me..thank you .....thank you....soory ..ooops...thank you"
Then one twit, a solid sort of bloke in a black military type jacket and with one of those knitted skull caps (also black) saw the gap everyone had left for us to get down and leap into it bounding up the stairs. He had on those big head phones that completely cover you ears. His head was down, shoulders hunched, not looking, the outside world occluded by the music.
It was going to be impossible for us to pass each other, I twisted sideways to make a gap for him but he still slammed into me. Instead of looking up to try and work out what he'd hit, he just pushed forward harder, the whole staircase now jamming up around him.
Unbelievable.
Well as he tried to barge past there was a moment when I had leverage. I'd pulled back as far as I could and as his chest drew level with my shoulder he was off balance between two steps. I didn't exactly ram him, I just rotated my shoulder into his chest. It was enough, he staggered backwards, the crush of bodies just keeping him upright but forcing several people back in the process. His head came up and I briefly saw a flash or realization on his face.
The gap reopened and I pressed on. Behind me I heard a grunt that was probably an obscenity but we were on the platform and jumped onto the train just as the doors shut.
"Phew, close....did you see that idiot?".
"I saw an idiot. Didn't you see what he was wearing? He looked like some sort of para military. He could just as easily have taken a swing at you from behind and knocked you down the stairs and you'd be lying on the platform with a split head."
I thought better of arguing. He had been a jerk. It would be nice if just once K would agree with me on something like this. Why wasn't I the knight in shining armor standing up to the ignorant and inconsiderate??
When we came to part company K gave me my usual kiss but held my arm for a moment longer than usual.
"Look sweetheart, I know that man was being incredibly inconsiderate, and he was clearly in the wrong, but why do you need to be the one who makes an issue of it? He was clearly a thug and I don't really want you in hospital."
She was right of course, I have prior form when it come to not being able to avoid provocation .
"So, I'm going to be a bit late tonight. If you get home first, sit yourself down and do me 200 lines - "I must learn to avoid trouble" and if I'm still not back when you finish go to the corner and wait and have a think. OK?"
I looked down, sulky, he'd been the jerk, how come I was in trouble?
"Yeah OK.....ummm.....pants down?" Often when I'm doing lines I have to do them with my pants down even if I'm not getting spanked, helps get the message across according to K.
"No, we'll see about that when I get home"
Great, not giving anything away. I'd rather she'd just said one way or another if I was getting spanked, even if I didn't think I deserved it, just so I'd know and not spend the whole day in suspense.
Well she was right, I got home first and sat down and got on with my lines. K still wasn't home when I finished. Now I could have sat down ad read the paper until I heard her at the door and then gone to the corner, but that's not how it works. So I got up and went and put myself in the corner and waited.If being taken by someone else and made to stand in the corner feels funny, taking yourself there when there is no one in the house feels even more odd, but I did it anyway, hands behind my back and listened to the silent house and waited.
Its a funny sort of meditative state you get into just standing with nothing to look at or listen to.K's point was entirely right, she was looking after me, in the same way that I had tried to look after her by clearing a path to get her onto her train. But pushing and shoving had been pretty silly and she was right, one day it will backfire.
I'd got the point by now and my back was starting to get stiff. I wondered when she'd get home and if the point would be emphasized on my bottom when she did.
I'd been in the corner a good while when K finally did get home. I heard her moving around behind me, a murmur of approval as she leafed through my pages of lines.
"Well"
"He was wrong, everyone could see, there was no point in me reacting, it didn't achieve anything and it could have got me hurt which you want to avoid and I should to." It probably sounded kind of muffled as I was still in the corner at this point.
"Good. Your turn to cook tonight? I'm starving?"
Footsteps retreating into the bedroom as K went to gt changed. I decided I was excused from the corner and started rummaging in the fridge for food............having first run my lines through the shredder!
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