Oh Cheers

The Main Protagonist has some horror he wishes to unburden himself of…

“On y va.” I muttered as I alighted the Euston-bound train from Manchester Picadilly.

Armed with a Financial Times, 2 litres of Buxton’s finest water and having just consumed the quickest and greasiest of Manchester’s railway cafe breakfasts, it was just over 2 hours that now separated myself and my beloved from our hometown on London.

Just over 2 hours is what I had allocated in my mind for myself. I had not realised there was The Disgusting Lady to complement my travel.

On y va.

Sniffling and full of mucoid misery, this wretched female humanoid – feminoid? – was sat right behind this writer’s seat, inflicting ongoing prime-audial nasal utterings, spewing forth from the nostrils a tissue-free snot-horror for the glorious benefit of my luck-limited lugs.

As The Disgusting Lady stood to remove items from her rucksack in the overhanging shelf; as The Disgusting Lady stood to wander to the toilet to relieve her lavatorial requirements; as The Disgusting Lady stood to reinsert items into her rucksack in the overhanging shelf, I found myself bound by a self-protective reflex of the fetal cower (the instinctive, “Get back!”) combined with a horrified frown (the instinctive, “Get away from me!”).

Sniffing squelchily all the way back to Euston, I had little choice but to tolerate The Disgusting Lady’s disgustingness.

I suppose I could have offered a tissue.

To cap it off, her toenail clippers fell into my lap from the sky above at one point.