Out of context

I was on the tram. A man in a nearby seat looked rather familiar. Was he someone I knew, or an undercover ticket inspector noticing I hadn’t bothered to re-validate my already several-hundred-times-re-validated Yearly ticket, so the tram company beancounters would get their flawed and meaningless statistics for the month?

He got up. “Daniel, how are you?”

As I almost always do in such situations, I feigned recognition in the hope that I’d work out who he was by how the conversation proceeded. “I’m good, how are you?”

It didn’t work. He must have seen the quizzical look on my face. “It’s Fraser.”

“Of course!” Then with a little more familiarity “How are ya?”

Of course it was Fraser. Met him a handful of times, but my excuse for not recognising him this time was he wasn’t in a suit (day off?) and he looked perhaps slightly less perky than usual (up late the night before?).

Having now gained a positive ID, the conversation got a bit more meaningful, at least for one more stop, before he got off the tram.

PS. On the subject of trams etc: Myki? They called it Myki?! I suppose we’ve already had Sheena Easton do an ad… maybe next it’ll be Toni Basil.