Monday morning - the dreaded first day back at work after a nice long festive break. At first, things were going swimmingly. The sound of my alarm clock didn't want to make me jump out of the window, my flatmate made me coffee (a rarity, as both of them are usually still snoozing when I leave for work) and I was out of the door and at the station on time.
"All is dandy," I thought to myself standing on the platform.
I got on the train surrounded by people who, like me, would have preferred not to be office-bound but were dealing with it anyway. Well, most people were.
To my left I heard sniffing. I turned round to find a woman, head in hands, sobbing her heart out. When I asked her if she was okay she looked up at me and said "going back to work sucks" and went back to crying for the remainder of the journey.
What a way to keep morale up. I got off the train thinking that this woman had obviously foreseen my week and that it was going to be absolutely awful.
It turns out, my week hasn't been as bad as she thought. Here is a list of what has helped me fight the January Blues these past few days...
1. The guy who got stuck in the ticket barriers at the station.
Nothing cheers up a commuter more than watching a fellow commuter suffer. In this particular situation you have two options, you either stop what you're doing and take a picture or you grin sadistically behind him waving the Oyster card that could help set him free.
2. How much I've already failed at my New Year's resolutions.
These were to eat more healthily and do more exercise. Myself and my flatmate agreed to do this together. So when I got home to find him stood in his running gear my response should have been "YES. NEW YEAR, NEW LAURA". The words that actually came out of my mouth were more along the lines of "Off you go then, I'm going to sit on the sofa and eat chocolate".
3. John at the pub
John is a regular at the pub that we go to semi-regularly (and by that I mean weekly). This particular night I had just finished eating my dinner, leaving a small portion having been defeated by the vast amount of macaroni cheese on my plate. Cue John walking up behind me to tell me that I had to finish every last bite because "you need to put some weight on those ankles before your legs break". This was very caring of him I thought, until he finished his fatherly lecture with "you look like a hamster who's had too many nuts in her face". Nope, just boozy talk. My immature sense of humour could not cope with this last statement and I ended up choking on the remainder of my food,
4.The guy who then had to put up with me sending him pictures of hamsters eating nuts and not calling me mental for finding it so hilarious.
Don't worry, I know I'm a nutter (pun definitely intended).
5. Luke the Gecko.
In case you didn't know, he's my flatmate's pet. And whatever way you look at it, he's had the worst week out of all of us. He went to lizardy heaven. So, no matter how tough this week gets, at least I can be grateful that I haven't ended up in a Tupperware box on the balcony.
If you take anything away from this blog post (aside from the fact I was compared to a nut-crazed hamster) it would be to ensure that you make a moment of someone's day completely random and hilarious. If you don't feel up to the challenge, just resort to sitting on a train weeping that life sucks.
