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A Conversation Overheard On the Train…
So, I popped down to Canterbury last weekend to help my Dad celebrate his 61st birthday – or, as he put it, the fortieth anniversary of his 21st birthday – and thus the early hours of Saturday morning saw me on a train bound from Victoria with a bunch of other Kent-bound individuals.
It was a dull journey, it always is. Well… actually, I say dull. Travel is generally not a favourite pastime, but of a bright autumn morning the scenery rushing past was quite pretty I suppose. And there wasn’t much in the way of pretty males to ogle en route so I was content with that.
But at Gillingham (a town not known for its classiness) a young couple boarded the train and sat in one of the seats diagonally opposite me. She was in leggings, needless to say, and he was extremely casually dressed, but quite cute in a sort of “could do with a decent skincare regime” sort of a way. Together though it must be said there was certainly a certain kind of crack-addict chic about them.
They were chatting. I was plugged into The Device so wasn’t aware of their conversation until we passed Selling and began to approach Canterbury. I duly unplugged myself and began gathering my things together. Idly, as one does, listening in to what’s going on around me in case there was anything interesting to be had.
Oh boy.
At first, you see, I thought they were talking about their jobs. There definitely was that sort of “and Janice in accounts said this, can you believe it?” sort of vibe to the conversation. And they were talking about money, particularly how she’d been given a hard time over it and how, or so I thought, she’d finally been made an offer which she’d thought was unacceptable and she’d had to think about it for a bit.
It was only as the train pulled into the station that one final fact suddenly changed the whole nature of their conversation as it finally became clear to me that what they’d been planning to offer her hadn’t actually been a payrise at all.
It was a custodial sentence.
The home counties really aren’t what they used to be, you know…
Posted on November 8, 2007 | Filed Under The World we Live In
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