Tram drivers say the darndest things.

There are only so many ways to entertain yourself when you're stuck in a little metal cage driving a tram that doesn't really need driving, give or take breakneck acceleration and sudden braking. Every now and then you strike a driver who clearly aspires to greater things (often a career in standup comedy).

On a Sunday on the way to badminton it became pretty apparent that I had a live one when the driver used the intercom to announce each stop in an appropriate style. Highlights included "Next stop, exhibition centre and a whole load of trams on my right" and (boxing promoter style), "Crowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwn CASINO!!!".

Had another one a few days later who displayed a classic example of the sardonic black humour peculiar to trammies. We were stopped at the lights one stop before the end of the tram route and the driver opens the doors to chat to one of his mates. As they're standing there chatting a woman tries to get off, only to be stopped by the ocker trammie saying "Nah, nah nah, you can't get off there. The paperwork's too much". Full points for innovative enforcement of the rules though.

Greypower

There is a large cohort of grey hairs that take my train line after the morning rush every so often. They seem to know what carriage to take and their numbers progressively increase as the train nears the city, until they have reached critical mass and everyone under the age of 65 has given up their seat.

Now don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with giving up my seat to my elders, in fact one of my pet peeves is when people do not give up their seats, but it fascinates me how the grey hairs (I assume some sort of glee club or 'over x age' social group) flex their collective muscles on these outings. I have watched on a couple of occasions as the train will pull up at a stop and Doreen, Charlie, Shirl and Mavis get on, chirpily greeting the others who are already on board. At this point, woe betide the younger person who is messing up their seating plan. If there are 2 oldies in a seat for 4, the oldies will proceed to smile sweetly but pointedly while their mates stand around looking distressed, until the younger passengers move. This is regardless of whether the train is full or not and you should see them grin and settle into their newly claimed seats once the young uns have been evicted.

It reminds me of some great quotes that I aspire to:

"I hope I grow old disgracefully. That's very important.
Thankfully, the older I get, the sillier I become." Phyllida Law.

"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me,
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we have no money for butter.
And I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth."

And finally, a nice one for anyone foolish enough to be undertaking post-grad study:

"The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time."
George Bernard Shaw.

Amen to that!

Big sister is now watching y'all :-)

In order to maintain the consistently geeky tone of this nerdy corner of cyberspace I have installed a web counter today. Funny how many people pass through - thought there were only about 4 people (myself included) that read it, but turns out that in the last 15 minutes 2 people from the US, 1 from Canada and 3 from Oztrailer have popped by, no doubt intently procrastinating as much as I do when I write it!

"Bitch!"

Heading home on a Friday afternoon, sitting near the front of the tram. The tram pulls up to a stop as usual but screeches to a halt unexpectedly, accompanied by another screech from the driver who yells 'bitch!!!'. The culprit is an elderly Indian woman who had somehow managed to run in front of the tram from behind another tram, appearing from nowhere.

Our tram takes off again, faster than before and we screech to another halt in the middle of a busy intersection, not standard practice for trams at rush hour. The driver, also of indian descent but mid-30s, gets out, stomps round to the front of the tram and twiddles with the tracks with the special track twiddling tool (typical female description eh?) and stomps back to the tram as traffic piles up around us. She stands in the door of the tram, hurling the large metal track twiddling tool back into the driver's area with such force that we all have a clanging noise ringing in our ears for a few minutes after.

She then gets back into her seat and accelerates head first towards an oncoming car so fast that we are all pretty sure we're going to die. Her technique, no doubt taught as part of tram driver stress relief in trammie school, involves ringing the ineffectual tram bell (no doubt intentionally so: there's only so much road rage you can cause with repeated 'ding ding ding ding's) as much as she can while driving at full speed towards oncoming cars.

It is a small miracle that we avoid being the tram-flavoured meat in a car sandwich and a disproportionate number of passengers get off at the next stop, favouring a small delay over going to their graves with a seriously pissed off trammie.

Not cute.

The inlaws are visiting from Noo Zulland. I have been on my best behaviour and things are going pretty well.

Last night, returning from a very pleasant meal with the inlaws and a good friend (also visiting) we were pleasantly surprised when the tram pulled up and the driver leant out and said 'mind the step'. I thought 'wow, how nice, a tram driver really looking after his passengers' and felt a twang of pride in my adopted city's transport service.

It was only as I stepped up on to the tram and he repeated it louder that I realised he was speaking in transport provider language, that fabulous downplaying language where trains are slightly delayed, planes require minor repairs, taxi drivers are momentarily unsure of where they are heading and women are a bit pregnant.

What our mullet-adorned trammie in fact meant, was 'mind the pile of puke on the step'. Very similar.

We managed to all avoid it (no mean feat in itself) and headed as far away as possible, towards the empty seats at the back of the tram. Upon arrival we realised that they were empty for a reason, whoever had deposited the first pile had been a very busy boy indeed ('scuse the inherent gender bias but you know it was a bloke!).

We hastily retreated to the middle of the tram and spent the rest of the journey trying not to look (or smell) forwards or backwards. Maybe a rental car's not such a bad idea for when the inlaws are next in town.