Before I begin with my latest post in thelittleshittyblog, I would like to welcome my first followers ananyabanerjee, Mon (Imma girl), luxelookbook and Atreya Thomas. Thanks guys for surprising me and making me smile with a display of commitment to this blog!
I’ve been on a well needed weekend away attending a friend’s birthday gig near Cambridge, allowing me to break out of my slump and grin as my body is filled with endorphins. Sometimes, in the words of Elsa from Frozen:
It’s funny how some distance
Makes everything seem small– Elsa, Frozen (Disney)
I needed to get away from the constantly grey looming clouds of my hometown and finally be with friends who can reassure me that after certain issues, which I won’t get into online, I’m a great person to be around and that they understand my point of view.
Now for this trip I had to travel to Birmingham via train. I haven’t had the impulse to travel to Birmingham before so this was my first time visiting the Birmingham New Street railway station. I imagine the people from Birmingham are bored of their casual Costa and Boots visits whilst waiting for the train, but where I come from all we have is a small WHSmith kiosk. So when I arrived at the station I was filled with travellers glee when I came across the variety of shops demanding I splurge on their products to keep myself occupied whilst I wait for the next train. They thrive on dehydrated tourists and impulse buys from the bored. My most exciting purchase was a magazine explaining the many uses of a Raspberry Pi. No, that isn’t a magazine on the alternative uses for pie (because eating is so mainstream…) but a guide on understanding how this little gadget:
can be made into things like this twitter doorbell:
So I am excited to learn more about computer science! My computer has long been neglected by my intermediate care.
But unfortunately, I did experience something rather bizarre, completely idiotic and unnecessary on my way to the Birmingham railway station toilets. Now it’s not something scandalous, as I imagine you immediately assumed as soon as the word bizarre was followed by toilet (you and your dirty little mind!), but something I’d not expected. One of the station’s employees, a guy who looked just to be in his early twenties, was fuming and giving all those entering the toilets stink eye and openly calling them idiots. Now, these toilets were the type you only get in big cities. The dreaded pay or shit yourself toilets. If you don’t pay, good luck finding the nearest one outside of the station whilst waddling like a penguin. If we catch you pissing or shitting in a corner that’s a £40 + fine.
So I knew the drill. You make sure you have 30p change (which is a hassle of its own) and approach the turnstiles ready to quickly go through. You have to multitask starting with pushing the bar, maneuvering your luggage and trying not to get hit, then you can queue if you happen to identify as female or just go through if you identify as male.
As I approached I could hear this employee cussing and telling people what idiots they were. Later as I was going through the turnstiles I realised he was commenting on the idiocy and ignorance of those still using the turnstiles when the gate he was standing in front of was open. Now what I hated most was that he was assuming that everyone was too stupid and plain to think for themselves.
I definitely noticed the gate was open. I could see it with my eyes, I’m not blind. However, I could also see that all those exiting the bathrooms were using the gate to get out. Since it was really busy there were a lot of people exiting the bathroom with luggage. The guy was also standing directly in front of it as if he would pull back anyone who tried to enter without paying. So my mind went, surely they wouldn’t want to direct those desperate to use the loo into those desperate to leave the smells of a public bathroom especially when they are all lugging around suitcases the size of little children.
From the first few years of school in the UK, we’re taught to process streams of people like traffic. You would never have cars driving in different directions on the same side of the road (unless at a festival intentionally designed to be chaotic), so the same applies to humans unless there is no option to do so.
Secondly, I evaluated whether going past the guy was worth it if there was a chance I would get told to go through the turnstiles when I knew just doing so in the first place would result in, presumably, no hassle.
So yes, I did pause to think about the situation before choosing the option I deemed the least problematic. But both myself and others received a stream of insults about what idiots we were behind our backs. I was so pissed that I considered speaking my mind to him if he was still there when I left and made sure to stare at him whilst I was waiting in the queue (how daring). I just couldn’t believe it. Not only was he openly insulting everyone, but he was making assumptions about people when he was the one being an idiot:
“Dear guy who works at Birmingham Station and likes to comment on peoples’ intelligence outside the loos,
If you want people to go through the gates…don’t stand in front of them.
Here is my suggestion: stand in front of the turnstiles, as a result blocking them off, and then people will go through the open gate. If the occasional person gives you a quizzical look, then casually point them towards the gate. If this happens a lot, consider putting a sign in front of the turnstiles. That will stop them.
Of course you still have the issue with a build up of people as they try to fit through one gate as they battle oncoming traffic…”
Luckily for him, when I finally squeezed past the huge queues to escape the crowded toilets, he was gone. Maybe he had got so tired of people’s stupidity that he had gone to the staff room to remind himself that there was hope for humanity found in the form of the LAD Bible.
So that’s the end of this blog post. I hope you enjoyed it and if you did, take a look at my two other posts (don’t hurt me, I’m new!) featured in theshittylittleblog. Also feel free to subscribe via email below so you don’t miss out on posts or follow using the RSS feed.
TTFN
thelittleshittyblog 
Hehe welcome! 😇
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