Bit of a resurrection..................
I was on the tube this morning sitting down reading my paper, there were no free seats but no one was standing. When it got to the next stop I didn't look up but heard people boarding and walking past where I was sitting. The train set off and after a few minutes I could hear a breathless grunting type noise. It was pretty loud as I could clearly hear it over the noise of the train in motion.
I looked up at the people standing near me but couldn't see the person responsible for the grunting. Carried on reading paper.
Train pulled into the next stop and I looked up again as I could still hear the grunting.
Looked down the isle and saw a man standing there. The grunting was coming from him. It was then obvious to see that he was suffering with MS or something like that as he was twitching and shaking uncontrollably all over the place. He was holding on to an overhead pole but it was easy to see he was having a bad time of trying to stay on his feet.
I had a look at the other people sitting between where I was and where he was standing. There were about 8 seated people, all no older than their 30's. I wondered why none of them had offered their seats to this guy. All of them were staring blankly into the blackness beyond the tube windows. It was an obvious attempt at avoiding eye contact so they wouldn't have to offer up their seat.
If i'm honest I didn't want to give up my seat either. 1) Because I wanted to read my paper and it's hard to do that standing up whilst trying to hold on to a pole, and 2) because there were at least 8 other people seated between me and this guy who really should've offered up their seat to him as he was shakily standing directly in front of them.
Anyway, I tried to continue reading my paper believing that one of these people would give up their seat, even though they hadn't after him standing there for almost 10 minutes so far. But I couldn't concentrate on reading though, all I could do was read each word printed in my newpaper individually but couldn't understand them as a sentence. This was a result of feeling sorry for this guy and feeling angry at the people sitting right under his nose not giving up their seat to some who REALLY needed it.
I couldn't take it anymore so I waved my hand to get his attention and offered him my seat. He smiled and made his way back down the isle towards me. One of the seated people between him and me had to move their bag so he could get past.
He sat in my seat, said thanks, and I went and stood in his place.
All of a sudden, as if by magic, all of the people seated near to where he was standing came back to life. Their eyes started moving again, looking around the carriage and at other passangers.
A couple of the seated people looked up at me, I looked down at them, shook my head, opened my newspaper to the page I was reading when seated, and almost stacked it as the train skipped to the side.
So, yes I do hate women with baby on board badges, but I've now found out how much more I hate seated people who won't offer their seat when they obviously really should.