A Glimmer of Joy on the Metro

She hit me. The lady hit me in the back with her purse. We were at least 20 yards from the train and halfway up the staircase. The “get the h on the cart or get squished” bell was ringing. Someone much swifter would have barely made it on the train in time from here. This middle-aged, overweight French woman was not swift. And yet…she hit me with her purse as she quickly waddled by. Granted, I was walking slowly [for the record, I was on the right (droite) side of the stairwell] – for I had accepted my fate: I would be forced to take the next train. A whopping two minutes of my day would be spent standing next to the urine gutters along the wall of the metro reading a book and awaiting the next train. It happens. Then…god giggled.

Don’t get the wrong idea, she didn’t fall, she didn’t smack into the side of the metro as the doors shut, or anything else like that, she made it onto the train. One of her feet did. The door closed on her foot/back half of her body/purse and she hurriedly yanked all of her self that she could onto the train. I lost it. I fell into a chair, I pointed, I laughed, I cried. This was the culmination of 5 weeks of frustration rising from the daily ritual of being crammed on a small metro train with 463 of my stinkiest, sweatiest, cigarette-smoke-smellingest, cold-having, nose-picking, farting, sniffling, wailing-baby-toting, accordion playing, fellow Parisians. Finally, I was granted laughter amidst a typically unpleasant and aggravating environment, albeit at the expense of another.

The woman pushed. She shoved. She panicked. She flailed. The doors closed. She was in. Sigh of relief. The straps of her purse were in. Fantastic. Her purse was not. I lost all semblance of composure. Others on the train gave a condescending look at my laughter through the nearest oversized window but I didn’t, and still don’t, care. Her purse was outside the train. She was inside. I apologize to anyone who was on the train or who may be reading this who fail to see the humor in this – by worldwide standards, this is funny (the UN said so last week).

As the train took off, I saw the lady through the window desperately tugging on her purse straps. The purse was going nowhere. As the train disappeared into the tunnel, the purse struck the wall and scraped against it until it was out of the range of audibility, and probably beyond. I laughed then. I laughed the rest of the day. I’m laughing now. So much joy at the expense of another makes me wonder if I’m a bad person. I respond negatively. My amusement at this lady’s expense has no bearing on the moral quality of my person…though blogging about it may. And you may be a bad person for reading this. But for those few brief moments, I experienced joy on the metro, and the next time I am struck with a purse or crammed up against the wall of a train between a crying baby and a stinky, hairy, sweaty jogger, I will think about that poor lady tugging on her purse and chuckle…a lot.

Thanks for reading.