How to Better Prepare Yourself for Train Travel on the Gold Coast Train

1). Wear heavy armor. Really heavy armor - the kind that REALLY hurts when you smack someone "accidentally" with your arm. Or knee.

2). Carry a weapon. It doesn't really matter what kind of weapon - even a rolled up newspaper will do the trick.

3). Wear earplugs. This is necessary for when telling small children to move off the three or four seats they're sprawled upon, and they then begin cussing you out like a sailor who's just realized his whore for the night is really a MAN, you'll at least be partially protected from it.

Just taking these three simple measures will allow you entire train ride experience to be far more enjoyable. Now, because I know you just trust me implicitly on this, I am going to be nice and explain the reasons WHY you should follow these three rules; why you should ALWAYS follow these three rules. Without question.

1). Wear heavy armor.
This might seem abit unusual, but it's really not if you think about it. If you've never caught the GC train before, you might not realize that during the week, it's a literal sardine fest. (This is really not news to those of you constantly travelling on any subway...except in Toronto where they have amazing leg room and the cars are so clean you could eat off the floors) Usually it's standing room only unless you're one of the lucky ones to be on the train FIRST, and you scramble over the other passengers to get a good seat. (A good seat would constitute somewhere near any of the doors)

But, if you're an unfortunate and cannot get a seat, nevermind a good one, then you're stuck standing up. At this point, you're being jostled around as the train moves along at it's not-so-rapid 90kph maximum speed, and people are bumping into you and you get the REALLY unfortunate luck of smelling their body odour as their arms flail around to stop themselves from falling.

However, if you are a fortunate and GOT a seat, nevermind a good one, then you wouldn't really be silly enough to say... leave your bag on the empty seat next to you, knowing that someone is going to trot along and request it. Or at least, that's what you HOPE will happen. You're blissfully ignorant in the ways of the world at this point - a fact you're about to realize within... Oh, about five seconds.

Because you see... in Australia, on the GC train, people don't ASK you to move your stuff off the seat. They don't TELL you too either. Nor do they suggest or scream or shout or cuss. They will do one of two things: They will either A) Move your stuff for you, or B) poke you harshly with a rolled up newspaper and then expect you to read their minds when they look blankly at you, not saying a word.

Being assaulted, of course brings me to points #2 and #3.

2). Carry a weapon.
Okay, so now you've just been assaulted in the arm because some older gentleman (and I use the term VERY loosely) has just decided that rather than ask you to move your bag (containing all your worldly work related goods) off the seat, he's going to poke you with a rolled up newspaper instead. And he doesn't talk, he doesn't excuse himself, he just waits for you to move your bag - which of course you do, because you're currently running a marathon in your head over all the different things you could have possibly said and/or done, but because the moment has gone and you were too slow, to do or say anything now would just make you look silly - and then sits down beside you as though nothing dreadful just happened.

But see now here is where you continue to lounge about in your chair, as though you had all the room in the world. The idea is to now make him feel very uncomfortable, which you succeed in doing quite well, I might say. Your knee is now touching his. Now your THIGH is touching his, and pretty soon you're going to have connected leg action all the way to the hip joint because THAT will make him squirm and think twice about poking you with a rolled up newspaper.

Alternatively, you could always turn around with YOUR rolled up newspaper (or weapon of choice) and crush the older gentleman's jewels so that he does, in fact, suddenly have a place to sit: the floor, after his knees have just buckled on him. Then you can smile down at him and go back to reading your book.

Which now brings me to #3. And believe me, if you're wearing a fully suit of plate body armor AND carrying around a rolled up newspaper, the LAST thing people are going to care about, is that you're wearing earplugs. Really, they won't. They're going to be more concerned about where they should happen to sit if they can get a seat, and what happens if you sit next to them - will there be enough room? does metal rust? if so, will the rusted suit of armor flake on me? if so, can I catch tetanus from that? - and then will also worry what you plan on doing with your weapon of choice, because as everybody knows, you DON'T read a newspaper on a not-so-rapidly-moving-but-very-jerky-train.

3). Wear earplugs.
This one is very important, and not just for the fact you'll need them to help keep your ears virginal, particularly after the string of very small but powerful words that just spewed forth from a kindergartener, after you asked him to move off the six seats he was occupying.

No, you see, when you ride on the GC train, you are cursed blessed with having each and every one of the stops announced over the loudspeaker by some unknown and very mysterious voice.

"You are travelling on the Gold Coast train!" the voice booms. And by booms, I mean the voice is two decibles higher than the average opera singer's voice, and so when it comes through the speakers of the train, your innards turn to jelly and your muscles spasm out of control and your brain begins to bleed. And then the voice proceeds to inform you of every stop it will be making this evening. BEFORE it leaves. And then as it leaves. And then again as it approaches it's first stop for the evening. And so on, and so on, and so on until you finally reach your destination and your brain has bled so much you can taste it in your mouth, and you can no longer think coherently, yet you are expected to drive the 10mins home again...Somehow.

And then you make it home safely, again for another night, and relay the events of the night (and sometimes the week) to your loving wife-to-be and your brother-in-law-to-be who makes it quite clear that if it was HIM who'd gotten assaulted, the assaultee would have been laying flat on the floor, nursing a broken nose.

So you can plainly see why following the three simples rules mentioned above, would make your train ride experience ALOT more enjoyable. And of course, should you feel the need to get overly violent, as is the case when you're stuck on the train for longer than 10mins and you have to hear that voice that grates on your nerves, you can always start leisurely bashing people round the head with your suit of armor, inbetween giving them papercuts with your rolled up newspaper, and for the especially bratty children, telling them your earplugs are actually hard caramel candy and then watch them choke to death on it because really, you CAN'T use the knee piece of your armor to crush in the skull of an eight year old.