Can a full moon affect the Underground?

Yesterday in my office we were talking with one of my colleagues who is about to burst with child about tube etiquette. Now any decent person would give up their seat in the tube for a pregnant woman, especially this one who might have her kid in the freaking tube. This however is not always the case as many people in London are highly selfish and quite unobservant. Taking note of her personal woes with the transport, I told myself that I would begin to watch for opportunities like these where I, an able bodied person, could give up my seat for someone who actually needed it either due to pregnancy, illness, physical handicap, etc.

Tonight, I actually came upon my first chance to put this new found cause into effect. I had just jumped on the Piccadilly line at Kings Cross and was headed south to Earl's Court. We are talking 12 stops, so this isn't a short ride. I was fortunate to get a seat right by the doors with one empty seat beside me. At the same time that I boarded the train, a blind man also boarded. This man was properly blind. He had a walking stick and the pupils of his eyes were silver. As I sat there, he sort of fumbled his way towards the seats, but instead of sitting down, he stood directly in front of me with his crotch in my face. Remembering my decision, I asked him if he would like to take my seat. I got up and let him know it was vacant, and then took the seat next to him.

This is when it gets weird. This is when he started to touch me. Ok not down there like a pervie, but as I had my hands on my bag, he actually hooked his hand around my arm. Instantly I was VERY uncomfortable. Thoughts started flooding my head. "Ok buddy I gave you my seat, not my arm." or "He's blind, I can't say anything" to "This is all a sick trick and those silver eyes are contacts" back to "He's blind, how can I think these things? I feel so awkward."

The expressions on my face must have been priceless as he started to really wedge himself under my arm. So in a very tactful manner I tried to remove my arm by non-nonchalantly sweeping my hair away from face. As I repositioned my arm, here came his little sneaky blind paw wrapping himself around my arm once again.

I looked up at the tube map in a panic thinking surely my stop was near, but I still had 8 to go, and I really think the blind guy was with me for the long haul. So I made a decision, a decision that I'm sure some of you will judge me for, but it had to be done. I mean I had entertained this for about ten minutes too long as I considered all of my options, but I did the only thing that I could think of. I pretended Covent Garden was my stop, got off the train, and waited for the next.

Now all of you that think I am heartless, this is fine because you are ignorant. When you have a random pseudo hand holding session with a blind stranger whose finger tips look like they've been freshly inked, then we can talk.

Brooke