Sunday 10 January 2010

Back-to-work black-and-blues


1) There's nothing like falling over really hard to remind you that snow is essentially a novelty weather condition, with a limited window of interest. It is particularly galling when you are wearing an eminently sensible pair of shoes. In a metallic, grip-free Converse, in which you routinely pretend - via your internal monologue - that you are Missy Elliott; in a flimsy ballet pump; in any kind of a heel; you must expect your coccyx to be crushed to dust beneath the combined might of gravity and your own post-Christmas bulk. But in a sturdy, ridge-soled wellington boot? Well, it is extremely hard to endure.

When I got on the tube, half an hour post-tumble, there was a man in my carriage playing with a Rubik's Cube. It made me wonder if I had hit my head when I fell and was now existing in some Ashes To Ashes-style alternate, 80s-set reality. Inevitably, I had my iPod set to Rio, which made it even harder to tell. Although obviously I was listening to an iPod, which was kind of a clue.

2) There's nothing like returning to work after a two-week break to remind you of the inhumanity of commuting.

One morning last week, when I was being Tested by the Tube, I saw a single man's shoe lying on a platform (I mean it was just one shoe, I don't know if he was married). It was a smart and shipshape kind of a shoe. Not like the fallout from someone who might be carrying all their belongings around with them at any one time. If you ask me, it had been left there, Cinders-style, when, at the stroke of 8.30am, someone stepped onto an underground train for the first time this year, leaving behind their smiling, relaxed, relational, casually dressed, Christmas holiday kind of self and turning back into their everyday, anxious, over-adrenalised working self, all dowdy suit and depressing packed lunch.

3 comments:

Pedro said...

Sounds like someone wasn't all that keen on paying heed to the ghost of corporate future (or there wasn't enough fat loogie for both feet).

I'll be heading to the northern hemisphere this week, so I'll be sure to pack my favorite footwear for slipping and tumbling. Thanks for the advice!

katetf said...

You might have brought your iPod with you back to the 80s as your one luxury item, though obviously if we follow this through to its logical conclusion, you now only have a limited number of songs. Do you now have only a limited number of songs?

alison said...

Poor old you - very well done for holding up your choir folder for 2 hours. I did not see any element of pain registered on your face, you are NAILS.