Reindeer eyes
As I got in to the tube carriage to return home after the pub last night the only seat that was free was next to an old man. He had long flowing white hair in what was trying to be a side parting. Whatever he used to brush his hair in the morning clearly wasn’t up to the task as his hair was all over the place. A bushy white moustache complemented his hair nicely. He was dressed pretty smartly, reading the Times and had a suitcase next to him suggesting he had been away somewhere. I settled down to try and read my book. I was finding it hard to concentrate on my book because of the alcohol in my system and the dry style in which the book was written and spent most of the time repeatedly reading the same paragraph trying to take something in. As the train got further out from London the carriage emptied. It got to the point where it was just myself, the old man and an attractive, heavily tattooed lady on platform shoes who had got on at Camden in our section of the carriage. The old man had finished his paper and was tunelessly whistling to himself. I had drunk enough to think it was a good idea to talk to the old man. The conversation went something like this.
“Have you just got back from holiday sir?” I thought the sir would appeal to a man of his generation.
“What’s that?” he replied in exactly the accent I was hoping for – a slightly upper class almost ex-military accent.
“Have you been on holiday?” pointing at the case by his feet.
“Oh yes. I’ve just been visiting my son up in Norway.”
“Nice. Where abouts?”
“Up near Tromso. Right up in the North” It might have been Tromso. I cant remember what he actually said.
“Ahh. I’ve visited the South but not made it up that far. I assume its nice?”
“Oh it is…”
“What does your son do up there?”
“He is studying reindeer eyes.” He said this with slightly uplifted eyebrows and a half smile on his lips. I wasn’t sure if he was smiling because he knew how odd that sounded or whether he was just making this up.
“Really?”
“Yes. He flys around in a helicopter and shoots the reindeer with tranquiliser guns so he can do his tests.”
“Really... What tests is he doing on their eyes?”
“Reindeer eyes change colour and structure with the seasons and they are trying to work out why that happens.”
We continued to talk but that was the best bit of the conversation. What a brilliant sounding job. Hanging around Norway flying in helicopters shooting reindeer. The checking out their eyes bits sounds a bit less fun but you can't have everything… I checked it out on the internet and reindeers eyes do change so he was either a good, imaginative liar or it was true. I hope it was true.
