One of `Them'

You know how it is when you're travelling down a motorway, or an A road (say), and suddenly the traffic slows up ahead and you're unable to work out what on earth all the braking and general slowing down is for.  You crane your neck but cant see any roadworks or signage, and there's no obvious sign of a blockage ... when suddenly you see flashing blue lights in the distance and realise what all the slowing down was about.

Yep.  So that everyone can have a jolly good old look.

Ok - well perhaps that's unfair.  Not everyone in the line of cars would want to look and, no doubt, there are some in the slow-moving queue who've ended up (much like yourself) caught in the trap of crawling past something rather grim - even though you'd rather not be doing 3mph past an overturned car and its accompanying detritus but instead would really like to be racing away from such an incident (safely within the speed limit of course) so that you're not reminded of your own mortality or how much life turns on a dime, etc., etc.

However, there would have to be some in the line of cars - also known as `that sort' - who would have voluntarily slowed down to have a good old gawk thus dictating the speed of the queue for the rest of the traffic on the road.

And, after this morning, I think I may have turned into one of `them'.

It was the usual Monday morning on the Central Line.  Relatively hot and busy train carriage.  I'm sat in the middle of everyone reading `Reddit' on my mobile and the air is thick with perfume and farts.

I'm just about to open up an interesting thread on scary stories when suddenly all hell breaks loose.  I look up and become aware, amidst the cacophony caused by the other passengers screeching, that we are sitting at a station and all the doors have just closed.  Except the one to my left (which is a few passengers away from me) which had failed to close round a ladies leg and is instead snugly holding the well dressed pin so that it is sticking right in to the carriage (at the bottom of the carriage door).  In order for the leg to be so low, however, the person (who the leg belongs to) has to be sitting on the platform floor and I look up mildly (and placidly) to see that, yes, I was right, there was a woman sitting on the platform edge, other leg dangling down in to the gap, and coat and bag strewn behind her.

The screeching must have started as the door failed to close, I calmly calculated, as I watched the woman looking a little embarrassed but injury free on the platform edge.  The screeching continued on, but then raised a notch as the woman tried, but failed, to release her limb by wiggling it a bit and it was shortly after this that a couple of women nearest the door bolted up from their seats and attempted to pry the door open - followed by nearly everyone else in the carriage with looks of determination on their faces.

Nearly everyone except me.

I placidly remained seated throughout but carried on watching.  I guess this might have been the point I sold my soul to the devil.

Naturally the passengers' efforts to release the door were in vain.  The only way to get those doors open again was either through the driver's control or if Dr David Bruce Banner had been one of the tube train passengers and was really angry.

Nevertheless they continued to struggle with the door (whilst hooting and hollering at each other) until the driver did actually release the opening mechanism and, after much laughter and brushing down of the previously trapped passenger, the usual silence (and smells) resumed and the tube journey continued on without further incident.

So, there you have it.  I am a rubbernecking pillock.

Feel free to pelt me with tomatoes.