The Asshat Hipster
I thought I might have nothing to write about on the way home this evening, but then the Universe stepped in and may as well have said “we can't have that, let's see what we can throw in your general direction”.
After stepping from the London Underground train at Paddington Station, and after squeezing my way up one of the flights of stairs from the platform to the concourse, I joined the queues for the turnstiles. While shuffling along I swapped my suitcase into my left hand, and fished my Oyster card from my pocket with my right hand – ready to pass straight through without delay. By chance, I had arrived on the platform between stairways, so had several hundred people in front of me – who were performing that strange self-sorting procedure that people do when they approach turnstiles – dividing into semi-orderlyqueues for each gate.
As I approached the nearest queue, a tall man in front of me darted left away from me, to the adjacent queue. He was perhaps 45 years old, quite tall, heavy set, wearing corduroy trousers, a knitted jumped, a scarf wrapped around his neck, thick rimmed glasses, and a thick beard. His shoes were brown leather, and he wore an Apple watch on his wrist.
As I drew level with him, the queue he joined suddenly stopped – somebody was having trouble with their ticket or Oyster Card at the turnstile ahead. He switched queues again – pushing in front of me, taking the place that was no longer there. I visibly shook my head, and mouthed the words “for f*cks sake!” at the back of his head.
He then approached the turnstile very close to the person in front, held an identity card against the sensor, and barged through it as it closed on him – forcing his way through. So he can afford an Apple watch, and he can afford the fake trappings of a city hipster, but he can't pay for travel around London? Why would you evenpretend to scan anything at the turnstiles, when you're going to sneak behind people to get through without paying ?
Idiot.