Chivalry is not dead (and the Trifecta of Three)

This morning was a crazy morning for our family. My husband had to go out of town for a couple of days for work… Nothing new to us; we lived in separate cities for six years but since TroubleMaker came to town, it’s the first out of town adventure for us since I started the new job. Logistically, we made it simpler by asking Pepere to take TroubleMaker and Max for the day – this saved me a journey to the sitters and then over to the dog daycare before then trying to commute to work from an industrial area (where Max’s daycare is). Easy, right?

Well, not really. Of all the mornings for TroubleMaker to sleep in, he picked this morning so we carted him off to his grandfather’s in his ‘night time underwear’ and his PJ’s. But of course we had a hard frost last night and I spent 10 minutes scraping and waiting for windows to defrost. OK – we’re on the road!

I drop the boys off, give my dad the run down and take off to catch the train…

Which was packed so I had to wait for the next train! I get on the train and it fills up and off we go – more or less 20 minutes behind my usual schedule. How bad can it be? I’ve been commuting with the University students all week and although I was ‘warned’ about how bad it would be I didn’t really see any problems.

Until this morning, when simultaneously, all 30 000(that’s thirty thousand) returning students came to the University all at once and on the same train. I had to wait and wait and wait and push my way to the stairs (once I escaped the confines of the train). I even had to push someone who was trying to cut in front of me, out of my way. But I got on and up and waited at the next set of stairs to go up. But I emerged, victorious to the fresh and reasonably un-crowded grounds.



photo courtesy of Shaun McGregor from Flikr







I decided to try and get a coffee in the Student’s Union Building – which isn’t normally too busy (when I get to work) but all bets were off this morning. But lucky me! The shop was deserted and I got my LDRC (Large Dark with Room for Cream – I have to make up my own acronyms so that I can compete with my work place).

As I walked, a crowd of students pushed in. The exit loomed and people were being courteous and holding the door for the person behind… One young fellow held the door for the guy behind him – he let go, assuming of course, the hooded fellow ahead of me would catch the door and hold for me. The Hooded Fellow didn’t – he let it drop. Thankfully, I had a free hand (and a lid on my coffee) and I caught the door – as the Young Fellow jumped back to catch the door (but missed). He looked apologetic and scowled at the Hooded Fellow. I smiled and thanked him for trying.

So chivalry is not dead everywhere – except for the Hooded Fellow and Dill Weeds on cell phones (but that’s another story).