Baggage Baggage On The Commuter Train
I was walking through this very long train to position myself for the optimal point to disembark, so I went through multiple interconnecting doors between carriages.
This was decades ago before interconnecting doors slid apart just by pressing a button, and on this train, it was a hinged door you had to push. Usually, these hinged doors would open easily, but sometimes they’d stick a bit.
With one door, I turned the handle and pushed, but there was some friction so I had to push a bit harder to open it.
When I turned round to close it, I noticed a carrier bag full of shopping there, and I realised that this was what caused the friction. And someone sitting in the seat next to the door was glaring at me.
Obviously, one of the stupidest places to leave a bag is in front of a door, so I just stared back at him for two seconds, silently closed the door, and sat down. I looked up a few seconds later, and the man was still glaring at me. I stared back for another couple of seconds and resumed reading my paper but not before noticing that he’d reinstated the bag in front of the door.
Thirty seconds later, a woman came through the door and apologised to the man for having pushed his shopping aside, but the man just silently glared back at her, and again, he put the bag in front of the door. He was also still glaring at me.
I stopped taking any notice until about ten minutes later. I looked up and saw the man picking the bag up while someone was turning the handle, and after that person came through, he put his bag in front of the door again.
This was a busy commuter train in South London, so the man must have been doing this continually throughout the journey — hearing the door handle, picking up his bag, and then putting it back again — instead of putting it in the overhead rack or between his legs like any normal person.
