Commute from hell

Because of my phlegm-filled lungs I've missed out of several social occasions, such as a luxurious kosher-dinner (yes, they exist), annual piss-up with my old colleagues, a-wedding-that-never-was-cum-barbecue and a weekend with my family. 

The last one I almost managed to salvage by catching up with my brother while still house-bound over a beer ("but you did say the doctor told you to drink plenty!") and by journeying to see my sister who was visiting another sister.

I love my sister's family dearly, I do. It's the visiting them- bit that takes some talking into. And it's not like she lives on the Moon. She lives in a neighbouring municipality that together with a couple of equally peculiar municipalities form the greater capital area. So, it's not really that far. Many people manage the daily commute just fine. It's me who has a problem with the Twilight Zone.

It's a transition many of my friends have made too. The move away from the city centre , flats conveniently located close to the after work drinks and spur of the moment dinners; late nights and late mornings that "everything within walking distance"- city life enables. In their search for "better quality of life" they seek asylum in places where one has to take public transport - occasionally several of them - to get to. The cost of living is lower, the areas are quieter and more residential, there are playgrounds and schools and nurseries and the money that pays the rent in my studio pays their mortgage.  In a house. 

I know living in the centre has spoiled me. I love that my commute has never been more than 10 minutes (no matter how high the heels I'm running in) and how rather than the last bus home, I get to be more concerned about catching syphilis.

Yet, in case I intend to keep these matrimonial migrants in my life, occasionally I have to give in and take that tram to get to the train station to catch a train that will transport me to a bus stop for the bus that will take me to my sister's.

Usually I end up making a weekend out of it. I simply can't bear the thought of  making that trip more than once a day.  Frankly, I don't understand how anyone can. 

I understand the parks and the playgrounds bit but not how spending 3 hours of one's day in a packed bus, squeezed in with strangers adds to the quality of anyone's life. 


Fat people with their arses spilling onto your seat (should you even manage to get one)? Standing up, desperately trying to hold onto the ceiling bar with your head buried in someone's hairy armpit? The BO, the ill-mannered teenagers, the know-it-all senior citizens, the frustrated mothers with prams and shopping bags and 14 toddlers in tow? 


Bus pass? I'll pass.