Tales from the Underground

So you know that, although it's only 11pm, you're not going to make it to Waterloo in time for the last train home. You wave goodbye to your friends hopping on the tube to Ealing Broadway, figuring you'll get the next tube to Richmond and the bus from there. You wait a while. 'Sokay, you have your crochet, you don't mind waiting... as long as you get home eventually. You realise that actually, Ealing is closer to home than Richmond, and anyway if you change to the Piccadilly line at South Kensington you can walk from Osterley. You should have travelled with your friends, and gotten home earlier. Bum. You start to worry about whether you will make the Piccadilly connection. The tube arrives (it's for Ealing Broadway). You get on. You sit. You crochet. You sit and sit and sit. This is a looooong tube journey. You're crossing all the way from zone 4 east London to zone 4 west London. Good thing you've got your crochet. Damn, you're tired. You wonder whether people are staring because of the crochet or the ghoulish Halloween make-up.*

Finally you make it to South Ken. You get the Heathrow tube, yay! Last stretch. Just as well because your bladder is fit to bust. You can make it. Everyone is looking about as tired as you, even without benefit of ghoulish eye shadow.

Wait. Not quite everyone. Dimly you become aware of a very enthusiastic Irish somebody trying to pep up the passengers. Pep up Londoners on their way home on (nearly) the last tube? Is he mad?

"...so everyone over here, let me hear you say yay!"
"Yaaayyy!"
"And everyone over here, let me hear you say yay!"
"..."

"Oh now, that's just pathetic, isn't it? C'mon, we'll try again. Let me hear you say yay!"
"..."

"Well now, what's wrong wit' you lot? These guys over here, they're doing great. Listen to them: let me hear you say yay!"
"Yaaaayyy!"
"That's just fan-tas-tic. Now you guys, you've got two-t'irds of the carriage, you can do better than that. Let me hear you say yay!"
"..."

Dude, you think. Seriously. I've been travelling for well over an hour. My yarn is getting all in a tangle and I'm not quite sober enough to fix it. I'm still six stops and a 20-minute walk from home, and I am experiencing increasing discomfort in the lower abdominal region. Yay? I Do Not Think So.

"Well this is awful! Come on guys! Don't you feel great? You're in one of the biggest metropolises in the world-"

...and that's the problem right there, you think bitterly...

"-let me hear you say yay!"
"..."

"Oh come on now. You're in London. You're going home. And tomorrow you're going to tell everyone a great story about this crazy guy on the tube."

Ah. Okay. You got me.

"Let me hear you say yay!"
"Yaaaayyy!"

_____
* Slightly gothy outfit + heavy shadows under the eyes + really, really big knitting needle/stake = suicidal vampire = laziest Halloween costume ever!