Planes, trains and automobiles

Writing a blog is like peeing outdoors in the dark. You know you’re doing it and it’s a (slightly nervous) relief, but you can’t see where it’s going or if anyone can see you doing it. It’s distinctly unsettling and if you didn’t really, really have to, you wouldn’t.

Long-distance bus rides long ago come to mind. Up mountains, down them, up them again, round and round the hell-born hairpin bends. When we finally stopped for a bit, the respite from nausea was overshadowed by needing to pee, and especially by knowing that it would have to be done behind a giant tyre in a place where trucks went to die. Of course it helped that there was usually a mother or an aunt to orchestrate this expedition. They never got it wrong.

In speeding trains, the shuddering, thundering loo seemed always to be on the point of wrenching itself away, but there was a door to keep out evil truck goblins. Unfortunately it also kept out mothers, fathers, aunts etc, so when you came out you might have found yourself marooned in an orphan cubicle, trundling along an empty track in bear country.

As for planes, if you were not maimed by one or the other silly device in the noisy can, there would be a hijacking while you were in there and you would have had the terrible burden of being the hero because you were the one who wasn't spotted.

Truck goblins and bears were upgraded to serial killers and creatures from The Descent, but hero-hood has since been recognised as optional, so progress has clearly been made.