Kidbrooke

I had no idea that the evening would come with a floor show. Well, not so much a floor show as a platform show. When I set-out at 17:00 for town, I had no idea that instead of going to my normal Wednesday night Game Night at Bunch Of Grapes, I'd be watching the local entertainment in Kidbrooke.

It started when trying to make a transfer at Waterloo East, a station I have only been through a couple times. I am not yet terribly familiar with how that particular station works. Figuring I needed assistance, I asked one of the station personnel to assist me.

"Can you direct me to the next train to London Bridge Station?" I asked

The guy politely explained where the monitors were and then, referring to that monitor, informed me that that the next train to leave platform A (the one I was currently standing on) would stop at London Bridge. "It's the next stop, mate, you can't miss it!"

I looked at the monitor he was pointing out. I could, now that it was explained to me, make perfect sense of the system. For, although, it was not immediately obvious, it was pretty straight-forward once you recognized it for what it was. As he finished explaining, the train pulled into the station. I thanked the gentleman for his assistance and boarded the train.

Imagine my surprise, when the train sped right through the station at London Bridge. I was apparently not the only person on the train that had been "helped' by the guy in the uniform. For as we were flying past the platform I wanted to be standing on a woman came up to me and touched me on the arm. "Doesn't this train stop here?" she asked.

"I had thought it did, since I was told this train would take me here." I replied.

"No," the guy standing across the aisle from me said. "The next stop for this train is Kidbrooke."

"Where is that?" I asked as the woman picked-up her mobile to cancel an appointment she was now going to miss.

"About twenty minutes away." Said the man and returned to reading his paper.

His information was confirmed as we passed through the next station at New Cross, and the ones at St. Johns, Lewisham and Blackheath. So, I exited the train here at Kidbrooke and crossed to the westbound platform. I learned from the signs above the track that the next train that would stop where I wanted to be was an hour away.

Great! It's a good thing I brought my PDA with me. I sat down and worked a crossword puzzle. Since then I have been trying to ignore the domestic squabble that has been going on across the track on the eastbound platform. Apparently, he has been calling her a "slag" all the way to the station from their flat and she has been yelling at him that he is a "tosser" and a "prig." The conversation has ranged all the way from how she cannot believe that he slept with some woman (I assume) whom she considers to be a whore of some kind or another, and how he thinks that if she is so upset about it she should go and sleep with a black man. (I fail to see the connection here, but apparently that connection was made back at their home.)

This dialogue had been raging for about thirty minutes when it finally reached a new low. He threatened to kill her and she threatened to kill him. He had run across the bridge connecting the two platforms and was yelling at her from this platform when the train to Victoria came. A brief intermission whilst the few people on the platform headed to Victoria boarded and the diatribe entered act two.

The big surprises in act two included the excitement of watching her, in what I increasingly became convinced was a state of some inebriation, jump off the platform onto the tracks and cross to the westbound platform (all the while being egged on by him to touch the third rail). Also there was the introduction of a new plot twist: the argument that if she didn't want him to go out and sleep with some floozy she wouldn’t have smoked all his dope.

The other big plot twist in act two was the introduction of some new characters. The local constabulary made their appearance and carted the couple off and the entertainment of the evening came to an end. All this and I still have five minutes to wait for the next train. I don't think I am going to make it to game night! I guess I'll do another crossword puzzle.

I hope wherever you are today, you have an entertaining day!

Don Bergquist - 06 September 2006 - Kidbrooke, Greenwich, UK