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Category: The daily grind ...

No. 38 Coffee Aerodynamics

by PHiLLi Email

latte It's early in the morning and I need to my caffeine fix. Until I've had my latte any brain functionality will be severly hampered.

Staggering into "insert name of evil capitalist, exploitative coffee chain corporation" I slurr my order at the barrista. Please note, slurring is early morning induced, but could occasionally come from the hangover due to a this-week-day-is-the-new-friday party out (it seemed like a good idea at the time).

It's fascinating that the barrista understands my order despite the lack of spoken coherence. This is similar to cab drivers who somehow manage to extract your home address from your drunken attempts at understandable speech.

Armed with said caffeine dosis, I venture back to the bus stop that will take me to my final workplace destination, where the pretence of efficiency shall continue.

In the bus is where the universe's law of physics somehow are thrown into a blender because when it comes to my coffee, gravity doesn't seem to apply anymore.

Every bump the bus takes, and it seems the bus driver is actually aiming for them, manages to somehow create a coffee burst even through the tiny lid opening that's supposed to keep the whole coffee experience civilised.

But I'm so desperate for my morning fix that I'll just suckle on the coffee, just hoping that any resulting burns will not lead to permanent lip damage. After all, I can't even sue "insert name of evil capitalist, exploitative coffee chain corporation" for damages as we are in Europe.

By the time I reach my destination at least half the coffee has found its way onto my clothes.

What the heck, brown is the new black anyway ...

Tight Squeeze

by PHiLLi Email

squeezeCommuting on a train in the morning sucks. Fact.

This is slightly alleviated by travelling out of the city centre rather than in because you tend to get a seat.

There you can dive into your copy of Metro / novel / whatever helps you get into tunnel vision mode ignoring the outside world as any good city person does in the morning. And three seat benches are good because generally there's space in the middle.

Generally, but not always. Not always because there's always the squeezer.

The squeezer comes and squeezes into the middle seat. OK, it's fair that you want to sit and even a middle seat is better than no seat. And being the polite Britain trained commuter I am, I try to make some space to accomodate for the squeezer's generally fat thighs.

But here comes the outrageous bit: the squeezer leans back, tucks in one shoulder and then the next, in the process robbing me of my backrest! A little wiggle here and there and before you know it, the squeezer and I are suddenly very personal.

What the hell?train

OK, some contact is unavoidable, but this much?

Sometimes I wonder whether they do it on purpose. I've noticed that often the squeezer also doesn't move when the seat next to them becomes available, which makes me suspect that they do it on purpose. Maybe it's a lack of love at home thing.

But do I have to be love replacement?

I hate to generalise, but so far it's always been women who've squeezed in. This would be OK, if those were attractive women, but again fate would not deal me such a good card.

Or maybe they are just battle hardened commuters who have taken to tunnel vision ignorance to a whole new level.

Buddhist commuting.