Priority seats

I walked on to my local tube station platform this morning, went to sit down on a bench, and saw that the first of the four seats on the bench had been newly designated "priority seat". So I didn't sit on it. I sat on one of the other three. Nobody else was sitting down - a train was coming in and everyone except me wanted to get on it - and I could have sat on the priority seat with total impunity. But I am British and therefore have an inbuilt dread fear of being challenged for Doing The Wrong Thing. So I sit on a non priority seat where I can relax in the knowledge that if someone who is a priority person needs the seat it will be there waiting for them. Or if it isn't, it won't be because it's my backside parked on it.

But who is a priority person? I've qualified for this special category quite a few times in my life but with non visible issues. And non visible issues are a nightmare because they mean that you have to assert yourself by asking for the priority seat to be vacated, which means describing your non visible issues to a carriage full of complete strangers, most of whom are at best indifferent and at worst sullen and hostile. I defy any reasonable person to do this. My first non visible issue was the first four months of pregnancy. I may not have been carrying serious baby weight but boy I needed to pee. Constantly. Sitting down was a crucial self protection. But find me someone capable of saying, excuse me can I have your seat. I am four months pregnant and it's making me want to pee like Seabiscuit. Nope, I couldn't do it. So I stood, and contracted urinary infections instead. My second time was after my foot surgery. When I was on crutches, the crowds parted like the Red Sea. When I was in a surgical boot, people instantly gave way for me. Once I was back in a shoe but limping, nobody gave a damn any more. The cloak of invisibility had descended and if I wanted priority access I was going to have to beg for it. So I didn't, and the pins in my heel consequently got inflamed, blah blah blah...you get the picture. So it was only a month or two ago, when it occurred to me, that if I was too British to ask for a priority seat to be vacated by a non priority person, then the chances were that the non priority person occupying the priority seat would probably be too British to argue with me. What Brit would demand my orthopaedic surgeon's number so they could call and verify the state of my disability? Or ask me to strip off my sock and shoe so they could check the scars? So I gave it a go. Hop on the train. Identify non priority squatter of priority seat. Several deep breaths. Excuse me, I squeak. Occupier is deep in his IPhone and is wearing headphones. Oh Lord, this is going to be harder than I thought. I debate my options, and decide to prod him gently in the shoulder. He starts and looks up. Excuse me, I say. He still has his headphones on and cannot hear me. EXCUSE ME, I finally boom, throwing caution and dignity to the wind. He takes off his headphones and looks at me, expressionlessly, while other commuters, startled and indignant, lower their Metros and stare, wondering which category I fall into: a) harmless nutter, b) dangerous terrorist or c) unnecessarily assertive for a weekday early morning. Could I please sit down? I ask, maintaining eye contact and trying not to lurch forward over him as the train makes its bumpy way to the next station. I have a foot injury and I need to sit. Protest and conformity wage a brief war with his facial expressions. Conformity wins. Yes of course, he mutters, gathers his stuff and gets up. I sit. Arrange myself with a triumphant beam reminiscent of Mr Bean. Yes. It can be done.