Manned up

Yesterday as I was going to the office, I noticed that there was a huge line at the station platform. I looked at the train departure schedule and noticed that none of the earlier scheduled trains arrived. The station announcer then came on the loud speaker and said that trains are being delayed due to an "accident" involving a person. I had the choice to either go back home and avoid the commuting headache or just "man up" and take the train when it arrived. I decided to do the latter and boy.. was I in store for a treat. The train finally came after almost a half an hour and not many people came out but the huge lines that formed at my station included yours truly all came in. At this point, it was bad but not that bad. I mean I still had space to move my elbow up and down. Then the next stop came. Again.. not many people came out, but like my station, huge lines formed waiting for the trains to go to Shinjuku and everyone came in the train car not caring if there was space for them or not. I got crushed. I mean, I was honestly standing on one leg and one arm holding on for dear life on one of the handles. I decided to man up and boy .. did I man up.. against 5 other people. It didn't help that there was a dude with permed hair standing right underneath my arm and his thick curly hair kept tickling my only support to avoid being controlled by the crowd. I felt like I was in a mosh pit filled with middle aged business men and women but with no music. This was really bad. So bad that the train had to stop for a while as a woman fainted because it was so packed, I overheard it was because she didn't have enough oxygen. Tokyo life... sometimes it is good.. sometimes it gets so bad that it takes your breath away.