Hands up, all those who've ever fallen asleep on a train. Everyone, right? Right, now hands up all those who've ever missed their station because they were asleep. Still a fair few? Ok. Beat this.
After a Saturday evening session in Fareham (celebrating someone's Birthday I believe) I bought the mandatory Kebab and munched my way through it whilst waiting for the 11.38pm train to Portchester. The train was a few minutes late. No problem, it allowed me to finish my munchies before getting on the chuffer, and maybe saved me from decorating myself again with garlic mayonnaise. (Ref. Kebab Shampoo Tooley tale)
Note:-The trip to Portchester only takes about 6 minutes, which is dangerous because it's just long enough to close my eyes and drift off.
"C'mon you, haven't you got a home to go to?" I heard from a great distance away, as my eyes slowly unglued themselves from their lids and lazily focused on a Guards uniform. "What? Eh? Where am I? Who are you? What time is it?"
"It's half past two on Sunday morning, you're in Portsmouth Harbour sidings, you've been asleep nearly 3 hours, and I want you out of here NOW" he growled. "Oh Shit"!!! So up I stood, cursing and swearing at my stupidity, opened the door and stepped out. "NOT THAT WAY" he yelled. Too late, I'd walked into thin air, and plummeted 6 feet down to the track below. It was only my floppy body state that stopped me from breaking my legs, and I'd missed the live electric rail by inches. Phew, Lucky or what. Scrambling back on to the platform reality sunk in, how on earth do you get home from Pompey at that time of a Sunday morning. I had only £2 left in my pocket, and the next train wasn't till 7am. The only option was to start walking and hope some kind soul would take pity on me.
Then it started raining... Not the soft, gentle kind that slowly caresses your body and gets you slightly damp. Oh no. No such luck for Dave Tooley, this was the hard, aggressive, in your face type that soaks you senseless on sight. Bugger it all, why does it always happen to me? Everyone else is all tucked up in bed and soundo, and I'm here at 3 o'clock in the morning, dead on my feet, soaked to the skin, looking at an 8 mile hike home.
At that critical moment, with me contemplating suicide, a Taxi pulled up alongside me. "Want a lift anywhere mate?" Thank God for that. So I jumped in, knowing damn well I never had enough dosh to get to the motorway, let alone pay my way home. There is no happy ending to this story, well, not for the taxi driver anyway. To my eternal shame, I waited till I was within half a mile of home, asked the driver to stop, gave him the £2 in small change in a scrunched up fist, jumped out and legged it. Honesty has its limits when you're cold, wet and tired.