Out in the Styx

By GlosKat

Wed, 06 May 2026
  • 161 reads
13 comments
 

Like most women I imagine, I have often had males, of all ages, offer me their seat on the train or bus, or offered to carry my suitcase up/down steps.  Although I always smile politely and say no thank you, I think it's rather sweet that chivalry isn't dead.

But last week I was trotting across the footbridge at Kemble station and stopped to push the handle down before I carried my suitcase down the stairs.  And a girl asked me if I wanted any help. A mere twiglet of twenty, no bigger than me !  As usual, I smiled politely and said no thank you, but inside I was horrified.  Obviously not only am I old (which I knew) but I look old (which in my vanity I thought I didn't). 

I felt like it was a real Rubicon moment.  Next stop the Styx sad

Certificate U
Non-fiction
Biography

Comments

Submitted by Turlough on

The place where Orpheus emerged from Hades, (leaving his lovely missus, Eurydice, behind) is known as the Devil’s Throat Cave and it’s near to the mountain village of Yagodina in southern Bulgaria. So the River Styx that represents the boundary between the Earth and the Underworld must have been nearby. You must be so pleased to find yourself living in what was formerly Thrace.

Perhaps to prove to those around you that you are still young and sprightly, you could dance the Can Can to the music of Jacques Offenbach as you cross the railway bridge at Kemble Station.

Turlough

Submitted by GlosKat on

Thank you Turlough but I think that would just prove to those around me that I was completely bonkers !

And yet again you have educated me, I didn't know Offenbach wrote the can-can.  I thought it was Toulouse Lautrec.

 

 

Submitted by Turlough on

Toulouse Lautrec's only involvement was to paint pictures of French ladies showing their saucy underwear. He wouldn't get away with it these days.

 

Turlough

Submitted by GlosKat on

I know cherie, it was a joke 'cos he painted ladies doing the can-can smiley.  But it was true that I didn't know Offenbach wrote it.

 

Submitted by Turlough on

There's a German fourth-tier men's football team called Offenbach Kickers. I wish they'd qualify for a European competition and get themselves on the telly so I can see if they play in frilly petticoats and stockings with garters. They could almost be called Offenbach Knickers.

Are we allowed to say that on ABC?

 

Turlough

Submitted by insertponceyfre... on

Maybe she was just doing her daily act of random kindness for Instagram and she'd have done the same for anyone?

 

Submitted by GlosKat on

Wow Claudine is that a thing ?  People not doing acts of kindness out of actual kindness, but in order to get ticks or likes or whatever it is ?  That strikes me as really sad.

However, I can see your point, and I shall take it as consolation, thank you.

I do like the way you French arrange things though. When in France I'm still only in my sixties (soixante-onze). In fact I will be in my sixties all the way up to soixante-dix-neuf. It sounds so much better smiley

 

Submitted by insertponceyfre... on

Yes, it is a thing, but not necessarily for clicks as far as I know. I think there's even a random acts of kindness day!

 

Submitted by GlosKat on

Oh dear that sounds like a day when old ladies are propelled across roads they don't actually want to cross.

Or Valentine's Day when men are forced to appear romantic because they know they'll get given earache and no supper if they don't.

I think I'm more in favour of spontaneity !

 

Submitted by Starfish Girl on

First smile of the morning, thank you. Old age a dreadful thing, as is vanity!

Submitted by GlosKat on

Thank you Starfish !  I have to say it was quite funny really, although it was a bit of a rite of passage.

 

Submitted by VeraClark on

It will be for Instagram or a Facebook post - nothing to do with your age. People are becoming kinder to virtue signal online. Laughing.  

 

Submitted by GlosKat on

Thanks Vera - I will clutch your kind words to my aged bosom.  smiley

It does seem that we are in a 'look at me' society now, where people want to put their entire lives online.  Don't understand it myself.