01 October 2015
Flossing and Trains
By Chin Chin
There is nothing intrinsically disgusting about using toothpicks. In fact not so long ago they would have been placed on the dining table so that those who encountered a particularly chewy piece of meat could remedy any consequences before they turned to tackle the dessert. But essential though they may once have been in the best society, there are places where they and their successors – flossing tools – are distinctly out of place. One of those is at the car-hire desk at a busy airport.
Picture the scene. It has been a tiring flight and the hour is late. A long drive awaits once you have secured your hire car and got on your way. The queue for rentals isn’t particularly long but there is only one man on the desk and, although he may be doing his best, the documentation for each customer seems to take an age to complete. Also, loyalty customers go straight to the front so sometimes the queue gets longer rather than shorter. Still, you are British and we have a way with queues; uncomplainingly, you wait in line.
It is at this point that you become aware of a restlessness behind you. The man showing his impatience is of foreign extraction and, to be honest rather than charitable, is stocky with an aggressive but furtive air and pig-like bristles. He paces up and down. He prowls to the front of the queue and then back to his place. Now he does it again. Perhaps he is trying to emulate the “Troops of Midian” who prowl and prowl around in the hymn. For a second you recall the next line which begins with the exhortation: “Christian, up and smite them” and it occurs to you that muscular Christianity has something going for it after all. He prowls again. You grit your teeth.
It is at this stage that you notice something sinister. When he walks he cups his hands round his mouth. To begin with this seemed like an involuntary gesture, and your original irritation became tempered with sympathy. After all it is a good effort if he can drive a car with an affliction of that sort. Then you realise that it is quite deliberate and that as he paces up and down he is simultaneously working his way through his teeth with some floss-holding device. It sets your own teeth on edge.
Pressed to explain why, you would be in some difficulty. After all, it is not a direct threat. The man may be twitchy and impatient but the likelihood of his trying to murder those ahead of him in the queue with a flossing tool is really quite small. It is true that, at the court of the Borgias, many met their ends by being stabbed in the back, but that sort of thing is comparatively rare in the high security environment of an international airport.
No, it isn’t the fear of being stabbed which is so worrying; rather the risk of being sprayed. Suppose that in his agitation this pig-like creature flosses too hard. The stick bends under the pressure as he tries to extract something lodged between his molars. He pushes. He grunts. He strains. Ping! Out it comes at about the same speed as a ball leaving a tennis racket. Unfortunately you are only a foot or two away so there would be no time to duck or indeed to hit it back with your passport. How might it end up? A new spot on the tie? A blot on the shirt which you have carefully preserved pristine through successive airline meals? Something that will have to be removed from your eye by a surgeon? Who knows, and yet here he comes again prowling up the right hand-side of the queue, grunting impatiently, his flossing tool hard at work in his mouth.
If it is basic good manners to allow others space, that still begs the question of how much that space should be. The answer is sufficient space to keep them clear of one’s own activities. For the flosser, that was probably 10 to 15 yards (he had particularly muscular thumbs). For the person who talks too loudly, on the other hand, the space must be in proportion to the decibels.
I was once on a train to Scotland. Actually that isn’t quite right because, the train having broken down near Berwick on Tweed, it wasn’t really a train “to” anywhere any more. Instead we had five hours to admire the rain falling in the damp fields and to wait for rescue. At a table behind me there was a man with an over-loud voice and his parents. He was a railway buff and he kept the entire carriage well-informed as to what going on.
“They’ll be bringing out the maroons soon” he announced suddenly, awakening a lively interest until it turned out that the maroons were not a form of emergency ration kept in the restaurant car but rather some sort of signal to be set out on the track to warn other trains of our presence.
“Ah” he said after a minute or two’s pause. “As the electricity has gone, they’ll have to get a diesel down from Edinburgh to tow us in. Our engine will need to go to the repair shop at Newcastle. The one built in 1994 after the fire which…”
Now, like most men and boys, I like trains and the first bits of information were quite interesting. But after quarter of an hour or so, I’d had quite enough and after half an hour I was wondering if I could make a tissue into earplugs. Still the voice grated on, just a bit too loud for anyone in the carriage to be able to ignore it, or read, or go to sleep, or do anything else.
In the end we were rescued; not by the train restarting or by an angry passenger throttling the train-spotter or anything predictable of that sort. No, we were rescued by a small can of coca cola which our noisy neighbour had thoughtlessly shaken before pulling the tab to open it. “Fizz” it went, “fizz, fizz,” as it sprayed its sweet sticky contents over the train-spotter and his family. There was plenty of noise after that, lots of swearing and muttering as they tried to clean themselves up with wipes but, even though it was quite loud, I have to say that it didn’t annoy me one bit.
I put my head back sleepily and even as my eyes closed I was conscious that I was planning a letter – a fulsome letter of gratitude and affection to the chairman of the Coca Cola company.
