09/09/09

This morning was an odd one.

I’m sitting on the bus as I do frequently when I am taking a trip into town to visit the jobcentre. It is a fortnightly, soon to be weekly, occurrence and nothing unusual to me. But there is something peculiar about this day. I seem more aware of my surroundings, more able to take notice and compare the things I see. The everyday juxtapositions life throws our way that no one ever takes the time to analyse. But it is a boring journey and there is nothing else to do.

So, I’m sitting on the bus as it idles in a queue of traffic. More road-works in the city, who’d have thought? Two men sit opposite me, one smartly dressed in a suit and tie with a briefcase in tow. The man to his right, on the other hand, looks like the other people usually seen in the jobcentre.

Right there in front of me is a juxtaposition of city life. And that wasn’t the only difference.

The suited-and-booted man was black. The tracksuit clad man was white.

The suited-and-booted man sat typing on his Apple Mac Notebook; very high tech indeed, and expensive too. The tracksuit clad man sat listening to some bad rap music that was blaring through his headphones from his old Sony walkman. Very low tech indeed, and so inexpensive I’m not sure they are even in circulation any more. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging. I’m merely pointing out a juxtaposition.

They spoke, neither to each other nor me, but to other passengers on the bus. The tracksuit clad man was local. He spoke in the typical, rough pronunciation and slang of the Newport working class. “Cheers mate, tara!”

The suited-and-booted man spoke in a clear, crisp north London accent. “Excuse me, could you tell me the time?”

Opposing countries. Opposing dialect.

So, this day seemed ordinary but for the fact I was rather more alert and dressed rather more smartly than usual. I had my routine 13 week interview at the jobcentre and I was handing in an application form the same morning so I thought I should make an effort. I wore my best jeans, black boots and a black coat. Remarkable for me really, I should have taken a photo to document the occasion.

Still, what I hadn’t counted on was receiving a smile from the suited-and-booted clad man the moment I sat opposite him on the bus. A totally normal, innocent gesture and yet it surprised me. It’s not often I receive such politeness from people like that; they usually do their best to ignore me or pretend I don’t exist. You see, I am usually just wearing a t-shirt and jeans. Not smart. Unremarkable. I would normally have expected to be treated this way by people more like me. But apparently to him, I seemed more like him than the guy sat next to him.

Not a very interesting story for many people, but just the way everything stood out and ideas came flooding to me so clearly startled me. So I felt I had to write it down.

If only I’d had my camera.