.jpg "Britta Huegel")
"Would you have married me if I had looked like this?" asked my father, and distorted his face to a horrible sight.
"No", my mother cooly answered.
Well - I remembered this incident ("No real love!" my father said and grinned), while sitting in the train from Berlin to Bremen via Hamburg. To Hamburg it takes two hours.
The train was too late (as often), but I found a good seat and started to write.
"RRRR - mmh - rrrgrrr - mm", it started two rows behind me.
Not a dog - a man. Harrumphing. And it didn't stop.
For two minutes: silence, then it started again:
"RRR - mmmmmm - rrrrgchck."
A man with a vocal tic in his chest. Horrible.
I took my I-pod. It blarred "LUCILLE!" into my ears, or "Highway to Hell" - but "Rrrrr - mmk - mmk - rrrrgk" - clear and loud. (My ears started to hurt, and I didn't know whether it was the music or the tic).
I tried it with ear plugs -
"mmm rrrgk mmchmm rurg..."
It wasn't a cough, and it wasn't temporarily. It was a habit, a tic.
So I put my pen down. Took my jacket. Went into another coach. Found a good seat. Placed my jacket - went back, fetched my suitcase and LEFT. Sometimes you have to.
Now I sit here and all is fine.
(The woman three seats behind me only rasps every 20 minutes - that is OK! )