Tram talk

Yesterday the temperature went below zero for the first time since we got here. It was something like -2℃ in the daytime. So it was not a good day for Tram 5, which Marlon takes to work, to be twenty minutes late. 

In a country where tardiness is unacceptable, the Dutch tram driver was beyond himself and visibly stressed. The crowd of frozen, grumpy commuters at each stop who would stomp into the tram and glare at the driver did nothing to ease the pressure on him to make up for lost time. 

Neither did the loud American woman who greeted every group of boarding passengers: "So! How long y'all been frozen for?" To make matters worse, a teenage guy kept leaning on the door, delaying the tram by a few precious seconds every time that door opened and closed. 

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Finally the tram speakers crackled to life and a voice boomed from the heavens. The beleaguered tram driver had had enough.

"WHAT. THE. F*CK?!" Who the f*ck keeps leaning on the f*cking door? I'm already more than twenty f*cking minutes late, so if the f*cker does that again at the next stop, I'm going to stop the tram, leave you all in here and go for a f*cking smoke break!"

Yesssss. Meltdown. In English. All the better for us non-Dutch to be entertained by.

So I was having a bad day yesterday. Call it schadenfreude, but sometimes it helps to remember you're not the only one!