Trains Of Rage

A girl in work asked me why I had to be so negative all the time. I told her that it's hard not to be negative when everything sucks.

I've come to the conclusion that no matter how good or bad my life is, I'll always find something that will enrage me to the point of wanting to stab myself. So, before I reach middle age and the inevitable high blood pressure and heart attacks, I'll vent my spleen at the Internet.

The last time I was angry enough to bother writing anything on here was related to a train based rage, and this time is no different. A weekend or two ago, I was going to Cardiff to drink some beer with my friends and had to get the train. The ticket office was closed at Neath station when I went to the platform so I didn't buy a ticket. Nothing different there. The train pulled up to the platform and I got on.

Everything was going pretty well for the first ten minutes. There was a woman with a gigantic rack sitting facing me and an old woman who had a moustache that put mine to shame. Can't complain about any of that. It all started going awry when the ticket guy came shuffling through the carriage after leaving Port Talbot. I got my legitimate, unexpired 16-25 railcard and money out of my wallet to pay the guy, then he said the five words that would send me spiralling into a rage equal to that of your standard Swansea smackhead unable to scrape together enough for a can of Special Brew... 'You can't use your railcard'.

Me: 'Sorry?'

Fuckhead: 'You can't use your railcard on the train!'

Me: 'Why can't I? I've used it on the train hundreds of times before. The ticket office wasn't open and now I'm using my legitimate railcard and I want to pay you with my discount'

Fuckhead: 'On the ticket that I'm about to sell you at full price you'll clearly see that you can only use your railcard when you purchase tickets before getting on the train.'

This dialogue continued for a while longer, all the time with me getting more irate. I asked to speak to the guy's supervisor. Nothing. Asked to speak to his boss. Nothing. Asked him his name. SIMON (Fuckhead). Now that I knew his name, I realised that there may be a slim chance of finding him in a different situation and ramming a stool down his fucking throat.

Fuckhead (Simon): 'You're either doing one of two things; buying a ticket from me at full price or getting off at the next station.'

Me: 'I'm not buying a ticket off you'.

Fuckhead (Simon) : 'Well what do you want to do then'?

Me: 'I want you to stop being such a scumbag'.

At this point there was a lot of Simon being a fag, shouting and screaming at me to get off at the next station, telling other passengers that I was abusive and threatening, and that I wouldn't be allowed on the next train. I took it in my stride and annoyed him even more by replying 'Alright, twat'. I realise that this would have been the perfect time to whip out a 'Sorry, God', but I wasn't thinking straight. The woman with the jugs and the granny with the 'tache didn't come to my aid and help defend my rights, so I decided to get off the train at Bridgend.

When I got off, Simon pulled the window down and told anyone who would listen to him on the platform, that I wasn't allowed on any trains, that I was aggressive and threatening and blah fucking blah. I just sat there, imagining pulling his eyes out, putting hot coals in his eye sockets, then sewing his eyelids shut. I had no doubt in my mind that this twat had nothing to back up his allegations, so I was pretty confident that I would get straight back on the next train, that was arriving ten minutes later.

I was sat down on a wall on the platform, jigging my legs up and down and twiddling my thumbs to suppress my urge to kill, when the train set off. The window came down a couple of carriages over from where I was sitting, then the stupid fucking ginger headed nonce face of Simon popped out. Clearly he must have thought that he was big and clever to taunt me from the train, he couldn't be more wrong. As the carriage slowly rolled past me, he stuck his head out of the window, looked at me and said as smarmily (I don't care if that's a word or not) as possible, 'Who's the scumbag now? I'm on the train and you're on the platform. Yeah.'

In that moment, I felt as if time had slowed down. My life flashed before my eyes, I thought about everyone that had ever pissed me off (time had slowed down a lot to fit that in to a couple of seconds) and used all of my power to convey my feelings towards this jumped up little prick in an action combining a carefully put together sequence of words and body language... I stuck my middle finger up at him and said as slowly and loudly as possible, 'Fuck off and die'. I swear I had a boner after seeing his reaction of powerlessly swinging his arms about trying to get someone to listen to him to ban me from the train while it sped him away out of my sight.

After that, I went over to the ticket office and calmly asked for a return to Cardiff, paid full price without arguing and got on the next train 5 minutes later. It wasn't about the fact that my railcard would have saved me three quid, it wasn't that I couldn't afford to pay full price for the ticket, it wasn't that I had no idea I couldn't use my railcard on the train. It was about getting one over on those twats who work for the railways who are so bitter about their pathetic job spent herding drunks around, not seeing sense and generally abusing what little power they've got to make their lives feel minutely less pointless. Gareth 1, Simon 0.

The night out in Cardiff was fairly average, but I was drunk getting on the train home at 11:40pm and still fucking irritated. Guess who was on the train taking tickets on the way back? My favourite neighbourhood train scumbag, Simon. I made the rational decision of hiding in the toilet all of the way home because I would have thrown the fucker under the train if he so much as looked at me. I didn't really feel like going to jail, getting banned from all train journeys and not having the opportunity to go and see bands play and get drunk on a regular basis, so I avoided the situation.

I guess you can change the score to Gareth 1, Simon 1. But I still won because I know where he works and I've got the opportunity of stalking him to his home and filling up his house with rats or murdering him or something. So if anyone sees a little ticket twat called Simon on the London Paddington to Swansea train anytime soon, please abuse him in any way you see fit.