A letter of complaint

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you have vowed to change/shake up France, but I was just wondering whether you were planning on doing anything about Line 13. For four years I have lived on this nightmare line (well actually that’s not true, I have always lived on this line it’s just that I used to live on the other end of it, you know the nice bit).

People often ask me how do I keep my somewhat nice figure (I won’t go as far as saying skinny) and really I have to tell them: "Line 13." You see I have mastered the art of fitting into the tightest of spaces and frankly I think that this constant squishing and stress of knowing that if I was any bigger has contributed to my lack of putting on weight despite the constant crap I eat. I have come to the conclusion that I like ‘Flat Stanley’ am getting squashed into shape every morning. That and the fact that in the afternoon I travel by a different line and power walk for 13 minutes to reach the comfort of my home: small and perfectly formed where no one shoves my bag into my oesophagus.

Line 13 has also contributed to the fact that I have arrived late at work for 160 of my 180 working days. While this keeps my colleagues amused with my daily reports of how the ‘misery line’, ‘cattle truck’ and ‘people pate’ has prevented me from arriving on time, I fear my bosses are not so amused.

I know that living in a city means that you have to be slightly desensitised to certain things, but frankly as I and the hundred or so other passengers who battle for that one salubrious spot at the back of the carriage (you know where there is a little niche by the back door), rugby tackling pregnant women and war veterans out of the way, I fear we are actually becoming dehumanised. To make this journey more palatable I need to be plugged into music so that I cannot hear the announcements of yet another passenger passing away because of lack of oxygen. There have been moments when I have been slightly peeved that these people have not been able to regulate their breathing to one gulp every ten minutes instead of the average of eighteen per minute.

So I suppose what I am saying is can you sort this line out. I know that vague promises have been made about 2012, but I’m not sure that I can wait that long; you see that would make me very late for work.

Kindest regards,

Miss Verilion (who now has a champagne bottle shaped dent in her left breast).