Foot fighter
A felt the warm embrace, mainly the astonishing smell cultivating through his socks into my mouth. A strong defence
Introduction
After a long day’s work, what do you crave? Is it a cup of tea to enjoy by the fire whilst you snuggle up with your dog and watch your favourite show? Or, if it was a bad day, a stiff scotch to wash your troubles away and forget about life. Or maybe a class or course to keep you alive, or emotionally there. What’s yours? For me, it’s a good cup of tea and maybe a couple of biscuits whilst I put the world to rights with my friends, and an overall catch-up. Now, what is not my wind-down activity, and nor should it be, is this,
After my tube journeys, I get onto the train, and I sit down expecting a normal commute home. The window seat, and I look out to see the city and my reflection. Then I get out my laptop, and I start to write. Like any other day, there’s always a twat who gets on and sits directly opposite you, even if there is space. I would describe it as a territory problem, not like a dog that starts pissing itself in your seat, hoping people will move. That would work, maybe that’s a top tip. If you want a table to yourself, just piss yourself, and people will move out of the way. But anyways,
I’ll add I am a tall person to some degree, I hold the height, and I speak to the clouds, which isn’t a saying but should be. But I have long legs, and I need space. This bastard got real comfy, firstly knocking my bag with her bag to try and score this spot for herself to optimise legroom, and so the foot fight begins. In the past, I’ve been a victim of this and have now sturdily taken the offensive, and I will not back down unless I think I shouldn’t be having a foot fight with an elderly gentleman who might not see the end of the train journey. Anyways, strike one, conkers. Whilst she was repositioning for strike two, I went on the sly, aggressively and planted my bag closer to the middle point of the table on the floor. She didn’t see it coming and went on the offensive with her feet and tried to sink her heel into my toes. Luckily, I was wearing steel-toe-capped boots, so that foot just bounced off. I stayed planted in my starting position and, with a united front, slid into the final defensive position, just encroaching on her space. She went for a side swipe, which I saw, and didn’t move. I’m happy for someone to kick me in the shin, so this wouldn’t be that bad. It was over, and she retreated.
I was victorious, but then began the occasional foot swipe, trying to get me to back away, and I was giving in. There should be trains that have a see-through table for people to see how much of a bastard they are being.
Loser
Also, no need to be a sore loser. So much eyebrow and disgust is thrown my way. Winner fair and square. If you’re an arse, you deserve to have no legroom.
When it goes too far, I was on a train home. I sat down as you do when there’s a seat on a train that needs filling, which is an appalling use of the word filling, you don’t fill a seat, where’s the liquid, you fill a glass or bath, but not a seat, there’s no edges, it would be like saying the earth was flat. It’s filled with water, well, if that were true, like a chair, it would fall off the side, therefore both statements are untrue.
Anyway, I was there, and I had my feet just there under the table at a right angle. They were perpendicular to me, and then another right angle down. Just imagine, legs bent. An elderly man jumped on the train, probably exaggerated that, but imagine it, he was full of a good stride in his step. I could tell if he were given a biscuit, it would have made his day, that sort of level. So he sat opposite, and he played a very different game. I was on the back foot, no pun intended. He had won, and I was a fool. He had done the full send, and I found it intimidating. He had placed his feet under my seat, left me with two options: either, as his legs were straight, to jump on those frail kneecaps, the shame would be the death of me and would be quite awful, or I could retreat; I hadn’t even made a move, but he had won. I then contorted my legs around his, basically hugging his legs. It was very awkward, so I thought I’d go the other way and shove my legs under my own seat as far back as possible, which, in doing so, annoyed the person sitting behind, but I could not face this man opposite. My legs went numb, and once I crawled off the train, I realised I cannot ever give up.
What I should have done in that situation is simply leaned in and said, “Ooo, this is intimate,” and watched this near 80-year-old man get up with such haste and move away; it would have worked a treat. What a missed opportunity that was.
The moral of the story, or the point, is, fight for what you want, haha, I’m kidding, imagine if I went all life coachy. When you are sitting at a table, either split the space or do the ratio on height difference, which may need you to talk to the fellow passenger, or just be nice and take a normal amount of space to accommodate those feet of yours. But if you want a good foot fight, be prepared to fight hard, and if you ever fight me, know you will lose, know the limits, and in the end, it’s just a small amount of space that won’t even make a fucking difference.