Stir Crazy

This morning on the tube, I was seated opposite a large man wearing a thick, grey overcoat. He had arrived on board carrying a recently purchased coffee which he held in one hand as he unzipped the front pocket of his rucksack. Inside, in an inbuilt pen holder, was a long-handled, shallow spoon, which appeared to be made of mottled plastic or wood. He extracted it gently, prised off the lid of his coffee, stirred the hot contents and replaced the top. I was strangely impressed: a man whose spoon preferences are so specific that he brings his own each day for this stage in his morning's ritual. He licked the foam off it and I waited to see where he would discard it. But, unexpectedly, no discard took place. Instead, he casually wiped the spoon off with a small napkin and replaced it in the pen holder. I can barely bear to think about it. This was not a throwaway cutlery item for my fellow passenger but a cherished favourite which would be reused time after time. Merely imagining the build-up of festering milk froth and saliva particles combining with the internal rucksack dust makes me feel queasy now, several hours later. But this is just another in a long list of odd characters one meets on the London Underground and I, for one, wouldn't change that for all the chauffeur-driven cars in the world.