Sugar Ray

Some might say I'm trying to blow my own trumpet again, but really I'm not.

Yesterday I helped an amply sized blind man cross the street. I was standing at Flinders St station waiting for the pedestrian lights to go green, when a blind guy nearly tripped over another dude who dropped his change. The blind guy, let's call him Ray, then proceeded to shout out ''Can someone help me cross the road?"

Well at least I think this is what he said, cos I did have my iPod on full blast at the time. Everybody standing around him looked down at their feet...duh people, he can't see! Avoiding his gaze makes no difference! I walked over to him and offered him my arm. Well I wasn't gonna hold his hand, he was clutching onto a McDonalds bag and I really couldn't deal with the grease. (See previous blog about touching ANYTHING that isn't myself...ahem)

So the lights changed and we walked over to the tram stop, to catch a tram up St Kilda Road. He said he needed the Glen Iris tram and I said I would take him to the conductor, to make sure they helped him board the correct tram. That kind of got me off the hook of having to wait for his tram, cos I can catch most trams going up St Kilda Rd. I digress boringly...

Anyway the strangest part of helping this young chap was when he started singing along to some cheesy loud music. I thought that was cute. This guy was kinda funny.

Then this morning walking along by myself to the tram stop, I heard the same music again. Gee that's weird I thought, there must be someone playing music this time every morning. Can't they invest in an iPod like everyone else? Then I realised that it was Kate Ceberano's 'Bedroom Eyes' and the music was coming from a scary advertisement featuring Kate in control briefs. Scary leopard print control briefs.




















And at that point, I envied the blind dude...if only for a second.

Can't touch this

I was raised to be paranoid about germs. By both parents. It hasn't just affected me but my siblings too. We are the type of family who cannot touch anything in public and open doors with a kerchief. Which poses a particular problem when riding on public transport.

Luckily for the rest of my family they avoid PT like the plague and work in locations that are reasonably accessible by car. But little ol' me, rides to work each day with an anxiety bordering on obsessive compulsive disorder.

I would love to say that I have rock hard abs, and I probably do under my thick layer of belly blubber, as I have almost mastered the art of adopting an anti-falling stance on PT, with a "look Mum, no hands!" approach. I say almost, as although I don my tram legs (similar to sea legs, you get the drift), on some trips I am forced to grab hold of the nearest greasy handle to save my own life and those around me. This fills me with deep regret and I feel tainted for the rest of the trip until I can get into work and wash my hands. I make a point of remembering which is my 'dirty' hand, and make sure that I do not use this hand for clean things, like holding my takeaway coffee cup or scratching my face...

So if you see a crazy chick, with red goggles, wild brown hair, legs akimbo, concentrating hard not to hold on and muttering curse words under her breath, that's me or one of the other million germaphobic people catching a tram to work. Hey, that handle slime can't be good for you...

Random poetry interjected between lame public transport rhetoric

Yep...a 'state the obvious' title.

Apologies peeps, I've been away for a while. Prepaid internet will get you every time you are down and out. Oh well, it's better than signing up to stupid limitless technology like an Iphone plan with...oh yeah I promised myself I wouldn't name people or pick on companies in this blog...

I don't give a fuck (Malades du travail)

It's a curious affliction,
That affects my diction
and reduces me to a puddle of fuck.

I would love to say that I sweat and I toil,
But the reality is I foil
wrap everything in sight.

If it's hidden,
Then I'm smitten
with delusions of peace and calm.

I feel like shrieking and shouting,
I'm alive, I'm here, don't discount me,
But to do so would be to be labelled a freak
and I'm not going back down that road.

Platform 14

Amazingly enough, I don't just catch trams...I catch trains too! Most of the time this is an okay thing except for when the Epping line stops on platform 14 at Flinders St station. Platform 14 is the nasty continuation of platform 1. It's dark, dank and orange lit, almost like Amsterdam's sex district but without the sex or red lighting.

When the train pulls up to this platform, you can almost hear the audible groan as passengers push their way out of the carriages and power walk up the platform to the light of day. What commences is a surreal wave of people floating but at the same time bobbing jerkily like they are on a conveyor belt at an airport or running a 10km fun run. Everybody wants to be the first person off the platform and up the stairs to civilisation. People scoot between pillars and find whatever rabbit warren available to push their way to the front. It almost reminds me of the invisible platform in the Harry Potter films that the muggles don't know about.

Platform 14 sux...

Slippery when wet or too sick for dinner

Probably my grossest (yeah so what?! I know it's not a real word) experience to date on public transport was the time a chick spewed in the doorway of the tram, a millisecond before she got off. Got off the tram, that is, not any other slang use of that term.

Anyway, I really should start at the beginning. This was another journey along Route 16 and everything was normal for part of the journey, until I noticed a very seedy looking lady sitting at the end of the tram. Each time the tram jerked along it's metal tracks, a panicked expression would flash across her face and her hand would clamp hold off her mouth in an attempt not too chunder. This went on for a good 20 mins and although I tried in vain to continue reading my novel, I really was far more concerned about whether she could keep her dinner down.

At last she made the move to disembark the tram and drunkenly shimmied over to the door. Thank Christ, I thought to myself, that was close. She pushed the buzzer for the next stop and the tram slowed down towards it's destination. All of a sudden she clutched her stomach and let rip an amazing technicolour yawn all over the floor of the tram. The tram stopped, the doors opened and she fled.

Everybody left on the tram was in shock. I checked my boots for speckles of puke and was glad to find them only covered in my own grime. Several people got up and moved as far as possible to the other end of the tram. I was sitting in the middle area, and I pondered my next move. But something took a hold of me, which I considered at the time to be a mature response but really was just utter stupidity. I decided to stay where I was to show that I was grown up and could handle a pile of vomit at my feet.

The tram continued along it's path and the smell of sick really started to become nauseating. But the story doesn't end here. A group of schoolboys got on the tram, unwittingly skidding through the puke as they boarded the tram. The were laughing and pushing and shoving one another like boys do, when one of them noticed the stinky mess. I took my leave of the situation and rushed to the back of the tram to watch in helpless despair. One boy threw his friend's bag on the noxious puddle and howled with laughter. The next boy pulled at the bag, then tried to push his mate towards it. This went on for about 10 mins, as my stomach clenched and I felt like I might end up re-inventing the gastric juices wheel.

Eventually the kids got off, and an older group of teenage boys got on. They were slightly more mature in the fact that they didn't try push each other in it, they simply conjured up every vomit story they could think of. Whether it was real or in a movie, they wanted to highlight the hilarious history of bile. By this point, I had turned totally green and considered getting off the tram in Armadale and getting a taxi home. Luckily the tram turned into a depot and the tram driver made an announcement that we were to change trams.

Needless to say I didn't eat dinner that night...

Daily virus scan for humans

You know what would be really cool? A daily virus scan for human beings like we have for computers. Once a day, a scheduled scan would check our bodies for diseases. If we had a problem, an alert would signal and a prescription would print out of our bodies, from a convenient slot (no points for guessing where from) and we could take it down the chemist to get the necessary disease-combating drug... problem solved!

I would like to say that I thought of this whilst on public transport but the truth is, I was brushing my teeth. And no, I was not stoned at the time...

Wet seat

This is the story of why sometimes I'm courteous.

For a while I was catching the route 16 tram to Kew. Admittedly this route is not the greatest way to get to Kew from the city as it's mind-numbingly slow and it passes through St Kilda. Now I'm not saying St Kilda is without merit, cos it's a pretty fun place to hang out in Summer, or if you are a druggie or a prostitute. But it's a fuckin' shit place to catch public transport through. And I must emphasise, it's the 'through', not the 'to' St Kilda that's the problem.

If you catch the tram there and get off in Acland Street, you're all fine. But if you need to go further than that you are in for a bumpy ride. This is because the druggies and prostitutes get on there in search of greener pastures. The vastly overrated greener pastures of Caulfield, Armadale, Hawthorn and Kew.

One particular day I was sitting down the back of the tram, iPod in, eyes closed, when an extremely large, extremely drunk woman got on the tram. I shifted nervously in my seat, hoping she wouldn't sit next to me. She didn't, thank god but she sat on the seat directly in front of me. I was immediately grossed out by the slice of takeaway pizza that she had bought. Normally the smell of pizza at 5.30 at night on the tram would make my stomach rumble with hunger, but something about the way that she clutched hold of the greasy cupboard container really made me feel ill. She devoured the pizza in a matter of seconds and shortly afterwards got off the tram. She wasn't on here for very long, I thought to myself before glancing down her empty seat.

But it wasn't totally empty. She had left behind a puddle of urine. At first I thought maybe it was just a discolouration, an old dark stain from days of piddling past, from some other drunk who couldn't control their bladder back in 1994. But alas no, I realised all too soon when the smell of fresh wee wafted underneath my nostrils.

OK fine, I'll just move seats, I thought. I was about to get up when an unsuspecting commuter boarded the tram. They made a beeline for the empty seat. My heart started pounding as I weighed up my moral dilemma. Alert them to the issue or let them sit in it? That seat's wet, I squeaked. What? the passenger scowled back at me. It's wet, I returned, I wouldn't sit there if I was you. They walked away.

So I spent the rest of my journey home as the piss monitor, official keeper of the yellow wetness. Although it was a small act of kindness, it did reassure me that I'm not totally desensitised to the well being of strangers. Even though sometimes I do bump into people in the city and don't say sorry...