Surviving London at Rush Hour

Let's face it, no city is at its best on the way to work. When the world is all sour faces either someone is giving out free lemon wedges or it is rush hour. In London, even the friendliest people turn to stone during the morning commute. I can't blame them. Queuing and jostling in the rain is an unhappy way to start your day. Here are some guidelines for surviving a rush hour in London:

1. Don't get in the way. Even the fragile looking old women in white gloves will knock you down like a rugby player and walk across your back.
2. Since you can't always get out of the way, apologize when you bang into somebody. If more people did, the whole experience would be better.
   
3. While riding an escalator in the underground, don't stand on the left side or the women in white gloves will get you.
4. Wear eye protection or someone's umbrella will poke yours out.

Here is my favorite London commute story: one morning on my way to work a grim little woman stomped my heel so hard that my foot came completely out of my shoe. I tried dancing on one foot to keep my white sock off the pavement, but lost my balance as she shouldered past me. As I stood in her wake, completely undone, she turned, gave me a dirty look that can best be described as "the stink eye", and scurried off towards Liverpool Street. So there I was, standing in the rain, a filthy, wet sock on one foot, my shoe a pace behind me being mercilessly trampled by women in white gloves and not a sympathetic face in sight. So alarmed was I that I wouldn't bend over to pick it up for fear someone would give me a wedgie. I kicked my shoe to the edge of the traffic before trying to put it back on. In disgust I threw my soiled sock down in the middle of the sidewalk. It lay there among the mangled umbrellas and forgotten gloves, like a corpse on a battlefield, evidence of that morning's carnage.