The Metropolis

A possibly apocryphal story about the Tube (Part 2)

Mike Pollitt | Friday 13 May, 2011 11:14

A friend was on a central line train going out to the East. It was late evening, not so busy that he had to breathe other people’s breath, nor so empty that everyone had a seat. A man got on, remarkable for his massive afro hair. This hair indeed proved his undoing. For when the doors closed, despite repeated warnings to mind them, he managed to get the top of his hair trapped between them. Try as he might, he could not move. After a brief struggle he accepted his fate, and with good humour assured his giggling but well-meaning co-passengers that he would wait until the next stop and free himself then. Alas at the next stop the doors opened on the other side. And at the next, and the next, and the next. There my friend asked the guy when he was getting off. “Two stops ago”, he said. Then my friend got off, because it was his stop.

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