ALTHOUGH London Tube carriages are quite spacious, I often wonder if they could be altered in any way?
For a little while I thought that at 4’9’’, my petite stature was a good size for Tube commuting. However it didn’t take me long to discover that I was wrong.
After finding myself becoming lost in the crowd during the peak hour rush that my daily journey to and from work consists of, I began to realise that perhaps being taller or having slightly broader shoulders would be a far more ideal situation.
I looked over at a 6 foot tall guy standing next to me on the platform and thought ‘lucky guy’! He can walk in, find his spot, see over everyone’s heads and even read other people’s newspapers over their unsuspecting shoulders. Unlike me, he certainly doesn’t share my problem of being the perfect height for becoming the involuntary underarm sniffer, or risk not being able to finish the article I’m reading from someone else’s paper because my lack of vision was disturbed by a shoulder, an elbow and even sometimes a chest!
Yes, at first, he did seem like the perfect size for the Tube until I saw he had to duck to get onto the carriage for starters and then once he was on, had to manage to find a space within the carriage to comfortably stand his lanky body.
So then I thought that maybe the girl who was a few inches taller than I, with a slightly bigger build, was the ideal size for the Tube. But after I noticed that she was changing her standing position at every station as more and more people squeezed onto the Tube, I very quickly changed my mind.. again.
A tall-ish, pudgy man who got on a few stops after me looked like he could be the perfect size to be content on the Overground ‘sardine tin’ system, but he too was having his own issues when the seat he sat down on was just a little too squishy for him.
So maybe my size is just right? While being lost in the crowd is a regular occurrence and other issues, such as my personal space being constantly invaded might bug me – I do find that being a ‘midge’ as some of my friends call me, has its bonuses.
I’m able to squish onto the Tube whenever I see that tiny bit of space that no one else has occupied (it’s almost like a game of Tetris). I’m able to ‘Tube shop’ by browsing the great designer shoes that the ladies wear to work. Plus I get to pull funny faces at the kids in prams without their parents catching me.
I guess that every body size has some level of discomfort whilst travelling on the Tube. I’m confident in saying that guys, in this instance, size does matter!
What are some of your most common Tube gripes? Tell us below: