The Apprentice

Happy 500th Profile View Bitchy... You GO Girlfriend!

In other news today, a Personal Assistant to a Big Exec somewhere in the City of London, received the sack for a miscarriage of duty on the London Underground.

[The Story Begins]

At about 1pm this afternoon I sat in a Circle Line carriage holding my breath. I had no reading material with which to distract myself, and so undertook a survey of my fellow tube-travellers, trying and failing to detect the source of the foul stench obstructing my nasal passages.

At Farringdon, several people boarded and left the train, and just as we were about to set off, a blonde woman hopped on at the last minute. She caught my attention as soon as she made it through the closing doors because I couldn't believe how brave (or stupid) she was.

B.A. ("Blonde Assistant" - I'll tell you how I knew she was an Assistant in a minute) had attempted to prevent the heavy metal doors from closing with her petite little hand, which of course would never have worked. Lucky for her, the kind (or exasperated) station platform patrol guy signalled to the driver to open up the doors again just in time. It would've been a rather gory sight had he not done so, as B.A.'s incredibly petite hand would indeed have been crushed.

After her near brush with finger-death, B.A. then held my attention for another reason entirely. Her face looked so familiar that I found myself staring at it intently for more than the permitted number of seconds, as I discovered, when her angry eyes flashed "Back off Lesbo!" at me. I quickly looked away and then realised that I had not in fact met B.A. before, but I had definitely seen her on television. I couldn't for the life of me work out when I had seen B.A. on TV, or what she had been doing on TV, and so persisted in sneaking the odd peek here and there in an attempt to jog my memory.

[As you can no doubt imagine, I was really rather grateful to B.A. at this point for all the pondering/perusing opportunities her presence on the train was providing, as up until her arrival, I had been faced with the prospect of instant stenchocation and had been in desperate need of a distraction...]

I managed to sneak a few more furtive glances at B.A, until she turned her back to me (I think she was appalled at how rude/sexually suggestive I was being). My up close and personal view of her backside alerted me to the fact that she was carrying clothing. The only reason I noticed the clothing in the crowded train was because of the ugly red tie dangling precariously off the back of a shirt and suit get-up, which blatantly did not belong to B.A.

In true tube-stalker fashion I then wondered why on earth she was carrying a man's suit with shirt and tie attached? And what kind of boyfriend or father she had who would make her do such a thing in the middle of the day when other normal people were either at work, commuting to/from work, or in my case, trotting off home with bulging carrier bags of food and essential items!

And that was when I decided she had to be an Assistant, either that or some poor unfortunate intern/temp, in a massive corporation, and consequently the personal slave of a rather large man with a penchant for ugly ties. I concluded the man must also be a bit of a cheapscate, as his suit was wrapped in the flimsiest polythane (or whatever that plastic wrap stuff is called) I had ever seen on dry-cleaned clothing! Even my crappy £5 a shirt dry-cleaners uses the good stuff that doesn't fall apart once swung over an arm. I felt sorry for B.A. It wasn't her fault that her boss' ugly tie was dragging on the dirty tube-carriage floor, it was his! You would think that if her boss was important enough to have his own Assistant cum Personal Slave (which I am told is a rare thing even in big affluent City corps) he would be earning enough to use a more "up-market" dry-cleaner with better packaging?

[Anyway...]

The train pulled into King's Cross which is the only place on the route to Moorgate where the train empties dramatically, and then fills to double its previous occupancy in a flash! Its really rather remarkable what goes on at King's Cross.

As the doors opened, my eyes wandered from B.A. (who made a quick exit, anxious to evade the weirdo situated several spaces too close for her comfort i.e. yours truly) to a rather smelly-looking father and son combo. The duo looked like they were headed for the two seats across from me, which filled me with the type of irrational panic only smelly passengers on the tube can inspire. I wracked my brain for something I could do to stop them from occuping those seats, and momentarily considered flinging my grocery bags onto the empty seats and declaring that I was "saving" them for someone. Unfortunately I am no longer 8, and the tube is not a Primary School classroom, and so I resigned myself to glaring at their really rather filthy attire and body parts - the son's nose had crusty flakes on it and he must have been at least 19... the father had the largest thumbs I think I have ever seen, under the nails of which was the largest amount of fingernail dirt I had definitely ever seen!

I held my breath, and the doors began to shut. Then, they slammed open again when a wiley Latino dude barged his way in with more gusto than B.A. had done a few minutes earlier. Whilst Latino dude and his slimey friends congratulated themselves in their mother tongue on having made it onto the departing train, I looked through the space between the open doors wondering, impatiently, when the train was ever going to get moving.

And that was when I saw it... the ugly red tie... trampled and forgotten on the King's Cross platform.

Now I know why she didn't last long on that television show.

THE END.