Today, I went up to Harrogate to attend the Lingerie and Swimwear exhibition.
I met a colleague at Kings Cross. As we stood talking about nothing much in particular but trying to be polite, all of a sudden there was a sudden stampede of trolleys and suitcases and pounding feet all heading towards the designated train for Harrogate. I then noticed that on the notice board the train to Harrogate had silently announced that it would be departing from platform 8 at 10am. It was only 9.40am.
People who a minute ago were standing around looking as if vampire had sucked the last juice from them and who were sipping cups of coffee for dear life, suddenly took off. A horde of middle aged, suited and booted, woollen hatted grannies, young smartly dressed businessmen, dodgy rain-coated bowler booted city gents all went flapping down the platform. The race for seats, I assumed had started or was the train about to depart 20 minutes early? Was there a freebie waiting for passengers who could out sprint each other? Or was it something more serious like the onset of train rage, or platform rage? one might ask.
I did not want to find out as either way I made sure I manoeuvred myself neatly out of harm’s way taking it in my stride and made my way to the train. I did not want to entice harm from a flying umbrella or concussion from the wheels of a flying trolley. I personally refused to run. No siree. Not me, not at that time of the morning and anyway, did we still not have a good 20 minutes to go before our departure?
Still, I was curious as to the goings on, on a cold Tuesday morning at Kings Cross Station. My mind scrambled as people who looked as though they would explode out of their skin or who looked so ashen that surely if a priest was around, would read them their last rights. It was certainly a comical thing to see. My colleague and I calmly walked to the train with still a good 15 minutes to spare bemused, amused at the early morning stampede. Once on the train, my colleague got into conversation with two women from Australia. I had no inclination whatsoever to engross myself in conversation with anyone. I had my laptop with me. I had work to do and any form of distraction would present a scowl and a Clint Eastwood, mean-eyed stare. Both these women too were rather perplexed and rather out of breath too, I noticed. Ahhh so they had been caught up in the stampede. Way to go babes, my mind hisse. Ketch ya breath back in about an hour.
It so transpired from another passenger, who seemed to take this journey often, that this happened often, this race to your seat thing. It had nothing to do with reserved seats. It has nothing to do with anything actually. It seemed to be a daily regime that had been started, just because someone felt like running for the train and like fool, following fool, everyone else always followed suit. Like the saying goes “Follow Fashion Monkey Never Drink Good Soup.”
I sat there listening, bemused, thinking what a bunch of idiots. What a waste of time and energy first thing in the morning. If they were training for an event, you could understand. If they were running for a train that was about to depart, you could understand. If they were running from a rabid dog with 6 legs and 2 tails, you could understand, but to run just because someone else decides to run and for no reason?
Like they say, 5% of people in the world are leaders and 95% are followers, the sheep. I certainly knew which side of the fence I was on.
