“Maybe you’re standing on a commuter train, using this book as a filter between you and a repellent armpit. If so, I’m terribly sorry. That’s no way to start the day, is it? Face in a pit. Commuter trains are the only place you’d not question standing what in any other social scenario would be freakishly and embarrassingly close to a friend, let alone a stranger.”
Is It Just Me? by Miranda Hart
This actually has happened to me on numerous occasions. I’m 5 foot 1, so optimal hight for the average armpit. The author of this book is about 6 foot 2 so I’m not sure she is really speaking from first hand experience. I would add to this. Worse than having your face in a pit during the morning commute is having your face in a pit during afternoon commute, on a boiling summer’s day in London. The Lord, in His wisdom has given me an olfactory system almost matching that of a sniffer dog, so imagine my torture…
I’m still trying to find my one true purpose with this nose of mine. More on that another time.
The thing is, that this mad, mad, modern world we live in, really is a bit strange. The other day my husband and I sat in our car in traffic beside a woman in a car alone. She was talking and waving her hands about animatedly as if she was really sitting in a coffee shop opposite her bestie recalling her first time on a rollercoaster. I’m sorry, but blue tooth and hands free is WEIRD! Though it has been around for quite some time, I cannot get used to it. And sometimes people don’t even wait for the semi-privacy of their car. I frequently pass people on the street having conversations with nobody.
Ever since I was a little girl I’ve imagined time travelling to another period in history: maybe arriving in plague-ridden London, with a box full of antibiotics; lying in a bikini on a beach a couple of hundred years ago or wearing open shoes at a posh Victorian garden party.
Just imagine what 16th century man (or woman) would think of our mad, mad, modern world!
Nyamazela 