The Quiet Carriage - A Steve Rant.

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“How was London?” Johnny knew he was asking for trouble questioning Steve about his travels, but it felt impolite not to.

“Yeah not bad,” Steve said, fiddling with a beer mat. Johnny nearly fell off his chair; He didn’t know if he’d ever heard Steve utter that phrase before in his life. He waited a minute to see if there was a but, but there didn’t seem to be.

 “That’s good then,” Johnny said, still feeling a little confused by his friend’s lack of complaints.

“If anything, it was too good,” Steve said.

“Too good?” Johnny wanted to get a thermometer out to see if Steve had a temperature.

“Yeah, train was on time, meeting was good, train nearly empty on the way back.”

Johnny looked around, maybe he’d sat at the wrong table last time he’d been to the bar. But no he was sitting in the right place.

“And get this,” Steve said. “I was in the quiet carriage.”

Ah here we go, thought Johnny. The quiet carriage rant. Not very original, there must have been at least ten facebook updates this week ranting about quiet carriage misdemeanours.

“and you’ll never guess what, but it was actually quiet,” Steve continued. “Not a message notification or a phone call in earshot, no bleeding headphones or bleeding kids playing their bleeding video games. No loud middle class people telling each other why those opposing Brexit were only thinking of themselves. Nothing, it was like a library, the odd sniff, the odd cough and a rustle of a packet of crisps, but otherwise silence.”

“That’s amazing,” Johnny nodded.

“I know, I was so pissed off,” Steve replied. “I mean what is this world coming to? People actually obeying the rules. People showing consideration to their fellow passengers. I only travel in the quiet coach so I can passive-aggressively tut at my fellow passengers. But there wasn’t one tutting opportunity, not one!  Even when the ticket collector came through he whispered tickets please.” Steve took a mouthful of beer. “It’s just not right,” he looked genuinely hurt as if the gods were conniving against him.

Johnny smiled, only Steve could turn a positive into a negative.

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself and go and buy the beers,” he said. “I’m sure next time you travel they’ll be a kid watching Peppa Pig in your earshot.”