Lemurs

I had to take the train to Cologne the other day, and getting to the main station reminded me of the good ol’ days, when I was forced to take a train every day to work thanks to my lack of a German license.

Getting to the Hauptbahnhof from our apartment involves taking two subways, which always had given me ample time to observe my fellow passengers and pass judgement on them based on facial expression, shoes or the fact that the music coming from their MP3 players was loud enough for everyone else to sing along.

Over time, I grew to resent these Germans on the subway more and more – their solemn-to-downright-sour looks; their loud-ass music coming from their headphones; their planting themselves in front of the door, not moving out of the way for anyone who wants to get in or out … I always had my reasons. Plus I can be a total asshole sometimes, if not in reality, than certainly in my head.

So I would devise ways to fuck with them a little, like charging down the escelator when changing subways, making everyone behind me think that the next train was at the platform. This, in turn, would make those behind me follow suit, racing down the stairs, only to be met by a trainless platform and a three-minute wait for the next one. And me, full of smug satisfaction and feeling a little bit like an undercover sociologist.

For a long time, there was an escalator that was out of order at the train station, and every single morning offered the same scene, which never failed to confuse me: Some people would take two or three steps up before realizing that the escalator wasn’t working. Instead of using the escalator anyway – in the form of normal stairs – the majority of people would actually turn around and go back down the stairs, only to climb the normal stairs next to the escalator. This happened every single day.

Today I saw that the escalator was finally working. And now the only thing that those who are using it have to remember is the ultimate German maxim when it comes to these things: Links stehen, rechts gehen: Stand on the left, walk on the right.