TO WALK or not to walk. That is the question. Or at least it is for me, every Monday morning when faced with a 9am start. And like all great existential dilemmas it’s a question that only spawns yet more questions.
Whether to walk or whether to Magic Bus is inevitably interconnected to other pressing issues such as whether to breakfast or not, is there any money in my purse for my bus fare, or - the ever confounding - heels or flats? This particular conundrum, naturally, potentially informs that day’s choice of outfit meaning that the decision to walk or bus into university takes on not only a practical and fiscal significance but also a sartorial one. I hope you begin to see the gravity of the situation.
I know you probably think I’m being facetious, but, you see, for months now I have been attempting to make my daily commute on my own two feet, and I think I’ve only actually managed it approximately three times. Every week I renew my promises to myself, every week is the week I’m going to start afresh, the week I’m going to break the bus-bound habits of a lifetime. Every week I fail. It is my very own tragic flaw. It seems, however steely my reserve, I am always more than capable of talking myself out of actually making the half an hour trek to and fro’.
I am seriously beginning to think my problem may be pathological. I’m not hugely unfit, nor am I particularly inactive in my day to day lifestyle – I should be more than up to it. After all, plenty of other people manage it. And these people, it must be said, are rapidly becoming the bane of my existence. You know the sort: they’re the ones waiting serenely outside the lecture theatre, fresh-faced, when you arrive, stressed, angry and sweaty after yet another traumatic bus ride. Not for them the stressful minutiae and uncontrollable irrational hatred so oft inspired by public transport. They will never know that unique rush of loathing as fellow passengers dawdle over retrieving money from their wallets, the intensity of which is directly proportional to how late one is for one’s seminar. I frequently gaze at these dedicated walkers wistfully out of the windows of my invariably stationary magic bus. They stroll by, blissfully unaware of the violations of personal space and the highway-code that are happening mere yards away from them.
In fact, I have been forced to come to the conclusion that life is made up of two kinds of people; walkers and ‘bussers’. My (very) occasional foray into the world of walking has demonstrated that I am never going to be one of those wholesome, casually ambling folk, rolling along, practically attired and smiling-faced. Whenever I have ignored my own particular call of the wild from the bus companies, I soon discover my shoes are either enormously uncomfortable, my coat/cardigan/dress flaps wildly in the wind and that my bag is too heavy and determined to slip off my shoulder at every given opportunity.
Once I was so worn out en route to University that I simply had to make a detour into Tesco Metro for a bottle of water and a muffin (feel free to interpret as journalistic exaggeration if you will, it possibly makes me look better...) As a consequence I arrived at my lecture not only stressed, angry and sweaty but £2.82 out of pocket as well. And so my conscience continues to wrestle with the same old questions every morning: is this a bus pass I see before me?
Hall of Shame
Working in a Fallowfield restaurant reveals to you the very best and the very worst of students. On the one hand you see the generosity and camaraderie; the huge lengths they will go to for a friend’s birthday party. On the other, you get the boorish drunken behaviour, the peevishness and the mean tips.
However, last week one particular group of drunken student eejits took the proverbial biscuit. Or prawn cracker to be precise. This difficult bunch of mouthy, incoherent girls decided they weren’t going to pay for their meal and did a runner. Disgusting, yes? What’s worse is that before they left they tried to justify their thievery. Why? A glass of tap water we didn’t serve them. They insisted this was illegal (not true) and therefore they shouldn’t have to pay us. Oh the sozzled logic of over-privileged, under-worked undergraduates.
I really thought there was nothing that could shock me when it came to ASBO worthy student behaviour, but that these girls would leg it from a regular student-haunt truly went above and beyond. These girls exemplified the worst stereotypes of the modern gradolescent: they were drunk, stingy and, worst of all, arrogant. No the customer isn’t always right, and quite frankly, if you’re so broke you can’t afford to buy a drink when you’re out for a meal perhaps you should be serving the customers instead.
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