The Day My Toothbrush Betrayed Me.

Coming back from a week at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, we were exhausted. Emotionally, physically, financially... you name it. We'd crammed in a dozen shows a day, lived on coffee and chips, and felt approximately one emotional breakdown away from tears at any given moment.

Our reward for surviving the week? A First Class train ticket home, snapped up through a last-minute app deal. We had visions of luxury: plush seats, free tea, maybe even a little tray of biscuits if we played our cards right.

Reality, however, had other plans.

When we arrived at the station, the train was already there, but the platform was far too short for it. The carriage we needed was way down beyond the tunnel, invisible from where we were standing. To make matters worse, the train had been delayed, meaning the platform was now heaving with irritated people, all of whom looked as if they might throw hands at anyone daring to push past them.

Still, armed with our digital tickets and the glimmer of hope that First Class awaited us like a promised land, we started the long, shameful journey down the train. Carriage after carriage of silent, resentful passengers squashed into narrow aisles. Nobody moved. Nobody smiled. Every single person seemed to radiate how dare you energy.

Clutching my rucksack tight, like it contained the crown jewels (or at least some precious contraband from a lost world), I tried to shuffle through politely, muttering 'sorry,' 'excuse me,' 'thank you', like a human apology machine.

That’s when disaster struck.

From deep within my bag came a noise. Low at first, almost ignorable. Then, horrifyingly, growing louder and louder. A high-pitched buzzing sound that, to my horror, I recognised immediately: my electric toothbrush had turned itself on.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard an electric toothbrush in the middle of a packed, silent train carriage, but let me tell you, it does not sound like a toothbrush. It sounds like something much, much worse. Something battery-operated and deeply, unforgivably personal.

I froze.

The buzzing grew more insistent, more urgent, vibrating through the fabric of my bag and (to my utter shame) into the squashed bodies of the passengers I was trying to squeeze past. I could feel the heat of a dozen horrified stares drilling into me.

I tried everything. Pressing my bag against my chest. Tilting it sideways. Hugging it in various increasingly desperate poses. I even tried to fumble discreetly inside, all while hissing fairly loudly, "It's just my toothbrush, sorry, IT'S JUST MY TOOTHBRUSH", which, in hindsight, probably made it sound a thousand times worse.

The noise pierced the silence like a wasp at a funeral - shrill, intrusive, impossible to ignore. People visibly recoiled as I passed. A man actually leaned back so far into his seat that he nearly crushed the woman behind him. One lady gasped. I tried to smile in an 'isn’t life funny?' kind of way. It wasn’t funny. Not to them.

By the time we reached First Class, I was red-faced, sweaty, and ready to throw my entire rucksack out of the window.

Naturally, the First Class carriage was also packed. And naturally, the only free seats were in the centre, requiring yet more squeezing past strangers while still audibly buzzing.

Eventually, somewhere between the free coffee and my shredded dignity, I managed to wrestle the toothbrush out of my bag and turn it off. It was buried under three layers of clothes, jammed against the on-switch in what felt like an act of betrayal.

I slumped into my seat, too tired to even explain anymore. Across the aisle, a child pointed at me and giggled. Fair enough.

I guess at the end of a week full of surreal comedy, there was one final performance left, and I was it.