Last night I was on the met line home and it was crowded. Very crowded. We stopped at Finchley Road and there were people wanting to get off. So I did the typical Londoner thing and tried to make myself as skinny as possible so they could squeeze through. They didn’t even try. So I shuffled out. Then shuffled out some more. Then ended up standing by the door of the carriage. No problem. UNTIL, a guy came rushing out of the carriage and clipped my shoulder which knocked me backwards out of the carriage causing me to shout out an R16 expletive. I put my foot back to land on the platform only to have it go straight into the gap!!! (This happened so quickly that my expletive turned into a full sentence but was still not suitable for young ears.) Thanks to the person behind me with split second reflexes I was caught and popped back onto the train.

I knew the train wasn’t going to rush off with the doors open but there was that one moment when I thought, “Holy crap! My leg is in the GAP!!!”
We have been programmed to fear the gap and fear it we do.

I never did look back to see who caught me and I felt bad for not saying thank you. So thank you mystery person who probably rode the train to Wembley Park with me.