Fear Not for the Future.

Travel around Melbourne is easy peasy, and for some even easier still.

Anyone who fears for the future at the hands of the Youth of Today, should be looking more closely at these wonderful, versatile talented folk.

Recently I wrote about not being clumsy. Well at least I figured mostly I am not clumsy. But CLUMSY is a pretty broad term I reckon.

Does not falling flat on your face when you put 2 feet on the ground in the morning as you stagger out of bed, make you NOT CLUMSY?

Does being able to push a wonky wheeled trolley around Woolies without waylaying into whatever fucking useless display special is taking up far too much room at the end of every aisle, make you NOT CLUMSY?

Or do you need to be able to dance Swan Lake and not just in the chorus line, or carry multiple dishes up your arms to deliver food simultaneously to the masses, to be considered NOT CLUMSY?

Last weekend while I was in Melbourne, I sat on the tram going any damn place I pleased,  and felt well and truly smug about myself. I had topped up my 'myki' travel card,  navigated to where I wanted to be and found the right tram and was proudly just sitting there minding my own business, enjoying the sights of suburban Melbourne. I had my handie thrown across my chest so both hands were free to wave or scratch or pull the dinger or whatever, and my miki was tucked into the top pocket of my coat so I could and did, hop on and off the trams with the ease and grace of a gazelle.  

Or so I thought.

At one point a young woman climbed aboard, and made me feel like a clutz, like a bull in a china shop, like a drunk blind person wandering through the expensive glassware section of David Jones when the fire alarm rings and everyone is in panic.

She climbed on, touched her card to the scanner and found herself a seat.

So far she could be me.

But then I checked her out.

In her hands she held, under complete calm control, her tiny handie. It wasn't one of those ones like mine, that was wrapped around my shoulders. Yep she had this wee item somehow balanced on 2 fingers. Bloody clever I reckon.

And she of course had her card and was also keeping up to date on her smart phone. Thumbs were flying in response to something that was making her smile.

So she sat opposite me clutching her handie and her card and was busy on her phone, but that my friends is not where it ends.

She was also very clearly enjoying her lunch - and sanga and a bottle of water.

It was not a safe sort of sanga that I might have chosen to chew up on a tram. No it wasn't a lame old vegemite on white bread with the crusts on adding to the rigidity of the whole thing, tucked snugly into a paqer bag, type sanga.

Nope it was a fully ladden jobbie with egg and mayo and chicken and some green stuff. The filling was about 2 times thicker than the bread holding it all in place. It looked like the crusts were gone, maybe she had already chewed 'em off like I'd go at a corn on the cob, in any case the whole thing looked bloody delicious and dangerous and fragile to me, and was all but the cause of a panic attack as I waited and waited and waited.

I waited for an explosion of sanga stuffing onto the floor.

She brilliantly continued the balletic job of handie and card and communication and sanga and water. She was a sight to behold. She chewed up and finger chattered and chewed up some more. She dropped not a crumb and I'll just bet that her comments and replies were spell checked and perfect too.

Let's not fear for a minute about the future. While there are folk like this wonderful young woman who can achieve all this on public transport with such composure, we are in very good hands.

In comparison just imagine me sitting there amid what would have inevitably been my spilt picnic, with other travellers slipping sidewards on the coleslaw and scraping salad from their shoes, and if by some unbelievable stretch of the imagination I managed to also use my phone, I can only guess it would have been to call someone asking for help, cos I sure as shit would have needed it.

Yep we are in good hands indeed.