The person whose lapse of attention to his black bag on his Tube journey inspired the blog entry “At the Lost and Found Office” didn’t always travel on the Tube [London underground]. The reason is the Tube stops running after midnight (12.30am from a Central London station), and the chap responsible for my Kafka-esque exchange at the Lost and Found Office often found himself inveigled into late-night drinking and dining forays. More specifically: going to the pub late afternoon, staying until closing time (11pm), then going to some late-night drinking place (where eye-watering charges are levied on drinks, even non-alcoholic or small ones, as it’s the “drinking company” that they’re paying for, solicited or otherwise), and after that to Chinatown for some very-late-night chow. After such a bender, one had the choice of going home in a taxi (and perhaps rue one’s folly the next morning, on top of one’s hangover, as post-midnight surcharges are applicable on top of everything else). Or take the night bus—which was what our “At the Lost and Found Office” protagonist owner-of-black-bag did. More than once.
Just like Satoshi in the “Falling asleep on the wrong line at the wrong time” blog entry, Kerry would cave in to the sleep demon on the Plumstead-bound No.53 bus and wake up finding he’d missed his stop. On one occasion, he woke up to find the bus had stopped moving altogether—it was sitting in the depot, the time was about 530am, and the cleaners were hosing it down, getting it ready for the new day's journeys! Just as well it wasn’t a Scotland-bound bus.
(London late-1990s)
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