Daddy, you're cheating!

 

I’m on my way home from a lovely day out in Edinburgh with the girls, and I’m sitting alone on the train. The carriage is relatively empty, apart from one Goth guy sitting opposite, wearing a band T-shirt, combats, and listening to his headphones – no doubt some unintelligible screaming sound over the top of thrashing guitars and frantic drums. Little do I know I would soon wish I was listening to some thrash-metal, as the silence is interrupted by the family from hell further down the carriage –

                “Daddy you’re cheating

                “Daddy… Daddy you’re cheating

                “Daddy, stop cheating, Daddy!”

This continues for the next fifteen minutes, during which time I’m not sure whether to start pulling my own hair out, or go and punch the spoilt little brat right in the face. They are playing some sort of card game, and the brat is obviously a sore loser. Even though she’s not much older than nine or ten I can already picture her as one of those university bullies, who armed with only her big mouth and Daddy’s credit card will make fun of poorer students, and go out of her way to cause them as much misery and mayhem as possible. The most frustrating thing is that it is people like her who ultimately end up travelling the world, or interning at top fashion houses and publishers – all at Daddy’s expense. Meanwhile the poorer kids will be lucky to get a reasonably paid office job with no future prospects, and most probably an arsehole of a boss. Life can be a bitch sometimes, but not as much a bitch as this girl on the train.

                “Why Daddy, Whyyyyyyyy?

                “Daddy you cheated!”

Followed by lots of boo-hooing and sobbing. 

                “Daddy why did you cheat? 

                “Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo, Daddy!”

I’m not even sure whether the tears are genuine, but immediately a smile comes over my face, and the word “schadenfreude” springs to mind. It roughly translates as taking pleasure in the misfortune of others, and was one of the buzz-words of Standard Grade English at school. If you dropped it into an essay you were practically guaranteed an A – all the teachers used to love it that much. 

I was certainly taking pleasure in this moment. Did I feel guilty that I was grinning manically at a ten-year-old child crying? – Not one bit. I’m a firm believer in Karma, and no matter how upset this girl is at the moment, it’s barely a fraction of the misery she will cause to others in the future. Not to mention the misery caused to other passengers on this train!

A voice comes over the tannoy to announce the next stop, and the family stand up to leave; the girl still sobbing loudly and screaming at her father because apparently he “cheated.” As the door slides shut behind them the carriage is once again peaceful, with only the faint tinny sound from the heavy metal guy’s earphones. I close my eyes, and in an instant all that rage and stress leaves my body and I can finally relax. The train moves off slowly onwards to its next destination.