We decided to take the train to work today instead of the tram. To do this, we have to walk past two tram stops so we were, as you might imagine, ecstatic to wait at the train station for 10 minutes only to finally be told the train was cancelled and we’d have to take the tram.

When we boarded the tram I noticed a book had been placed on a nearby seat and next to the book was a dripping wet umbrella. Since it was pouring rain outside it made sense for the umbrella to be so wet but it didn’t make sense to put it on a cloth seat that someone would have to sit on later. I asked the girl sitting opposite the goods if they were hers, intending to then ask her to move the umbrella off the seat. She said they were not hers and she didn’t know who they belonged to. In the absence of anyone else near the ticket machine, I shrugged and then moved the umbrella off the seat onto the plastic-covered book. My theory was that the plastic cover could easily be wiped off and it meant the umbrella was not on the floor, in danger of being trodden on.

About 10 seconds later a 20-25yo Chinese girl slouched across the doorway of the tram whilst sending text messages on her mobile phone stormed up the aisle and grabbed the umbrella furiously off the book, giving me the death-stare for daring to touch her stuff. She slammed the umbrella onto the ground as hard as she could, where it bounced once up into the bottom of the seat and back down again, snagging on her right high-heeled shoe. As she stormed back to block the doorway again, she realised she was dragging the umbrella and flicked her foot to free herself. The umbrella came to rest in the middle of the tram aisle but she didn’t seem to care. It was at this point she became my SPOTD but more was to come.

Within a few stops, the seat with her book on it was required by a passenger since the tram was filling more quickly than usual (cancelled trains have that effect). The prospective passenger asked the fellow in the seat beside the book if he could move it for her and he replied it was not his. I mentioned it was the property of the girl standing a few metres away in the doorway and that the umbrella everyone was standing on was hers as well. He helpfully offered the SPOTD the book which she snatched from his hands though when he leaned down and picked up the umbrella to hand to her, she instead told him to leave it there.

And so it was, when I finally got off the tram over half an hour later, this SPOTD girl was still standing slouched across the doorway, preventing easy access to the packed tram whilst people were standing on top of her umbrella some distance away. How she intended to get it back was beyond me - it seemed to be in working order since she was dry and it was wet - so eventually I assume she had to go to the last stop on the tram line in order to retrieve her belongings.

Categories: SPOTD
No Comments »