What Lies Beneath

So. I am sat on the train. My working hours don't suit the cat, so the poor thing's off to the country for a few weeks. I'll miss her, but she's sat happily in her cat box, counting down the minutes till she reaches fields.

Anyway the train is interesting. These things always are. There's the group of old pensioners who care VERY MUCH about exactly where they sit, but try and laugh it off with uneasy bonhomie. "No Brenda, you go over there. Just sit down. No, you sit down. Now I'll just check that ticket. I don't know if this is 53A or not. Let's just see what this seat reservation says. Oh, excuse me. No it's fine. We'll find two together. It will be allright. Is this your bag?" And so on.

On the aisle across from me is a girl. One of those people who doesn't wear make-up but perhaps she should. She's about the same age as me, but still dressed in student tie-dye and shawls. Her feet are up on the seat and she's surrounded by the results of a raid on M&S, Starbucks, Smiths and wherever the fuck sells "Vitamin water". Oddly, she looks even more like the kind of person who'd travel with a cat than me.

She has a run-in with the ticket inspector. You know, one of those tiny, boring "picked up the seat-reservation but not the ticket" things. She was flustered and weirdly college debating society, the ticket inspector was polite but firmly seen-it-all-before. These things aren't interesting and they resolve themselves after a couple of minutes.

Only... half an hour later she phones someone. Partner? Parent? "Oh, not so bad. No, going through Exeter. Famished. No, funny thing happened. Oh yes. We all thought it very amusing. The ticket inspector had a REAL GO at a... MAN over his ticket. He didn't quite have the right bit, and the ticket inspector was really aggressive about it, but this Man, he completely put him in his place over it. He was a solicitor and he knew his all rights and it was really funny. I mean it started off awkward but it ended up SO funny and he knew all about the small claims court and was really... I mean no, he didn't say like he was a solicitor but we all knew that he was and he really had one over on the Ticket Guy and it was so funny and I'll tell you more about it when I get in." And when she hangs up there's a real smile of triumph on her face. Odd.