I have been traveling more often lately, and because of this I am constantly traveling by bus, train, and, less frequently, by plane. I generally like the idea of travel, not even so much the end goal as the spirit of going somewhere, the scenery outside the window. But this often entails a lot of interaction with different people.
You come across some nice and sweet people, as well as some troubled ones. More than once I’ve been in a compartment or just next door on a train or bus with really nervous people. I once rode with a girl who was constantly tossing and turning her hair on the road. All seven hours of it. Sleeping next to her was impossible. And recently I was lucky enough to ride with an elderly man who was taking his granddaughter to the sea. You could tell right away that it was the first time he was going anywhere with a child on his own, because he almost had the girl on a leash. He was making rude remarks to his granddaughter, sometimes bursting into “shut your mouth” and a little more gently asking everyone else in the vicinity to be quiet as well. I generally rode quietly, but Grandpa pounded on my top shelf whenever I dared to roll over on my side or I got a notification on my phone.
Toward morning, near the time of arrival, a scandal broke out all over the carriage – some conductor had dared to inadvertently wake up his granddaughter because her feet were sticking out in the aisle. The girl was about ten years old, she started being capricious, woke everybody up, including her grandfather, who couldn’t stay away. He demanded that the conductor be fired, that the “chief” be summoned.
The old man was pacified by a woman who was also travelling with a child whom the old man, along with his granddaughter, was making remarks and telling to shut up. She very rudely asked him to shut up, or to get off at the nearest station and take a private train so that no one would dare disturb him.
That must be the way to deal with this sort of person – rudeness upon rudeness. They usually run out of words and finally shut up.
