I just had an interesting experience on the tram. Well, not so much an incident as an imaginary incident. It was really kind of a mundane thing but it was a Prague thing, and I thought it was funny, so I’m writing about it.
I was going to pick up my daughter, who’d been at a dance competition all day. I got on the #26 at Masarykovo Nadraži, headed for Olšanke Naměsti. Now, it’s always a 50/50 shot at whether you’re going to get a seat or not. There is no time of day or night, no neighborhood so remote, that there is a guarantee the tram will not be crowded, and 9 o’clock on a Saturday night, near the center, it was no surprise at all that it was standing room only.
But I looked around and, lo and behold, I saw a spare seat. It was a bit different, though. The first thought in my head was “Cool, they’ve upgraded.” It was a cushioned seat, looked rather plush, with a polished, elegantly curved black armrest. I was about to sit down, and then realized (“Hmm, that’s strange,” I thought) that all of the other seats on the tram were perfectly normal, hard plastic tram seats. And then I realized that it wasn’t part of the tram at all, it was a chair that belonged to the woman sitting next to it, probably just taking it home from the shop.
It would have been a bit awkward and embarrassing if I’d gone ahead and sat down. Especially if I broke it.
A Non-Incident on the Tram
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