I lost an earphone on a train to London Friday, found it the following Monday.

A friend of mine told me I should share my Dull Mens Club post on Reddit… so here I am. Copied verbatim, hence the slightly out of context Reddit references.

This is verging on absolutely exhilarating, but still feels appropriately dull to share… it’s a long one, but that won’t faze a true dull man.

Friday before last I was heading into London for a few meetings. Being a very busy time of year for my industry, I had one Bluetooth earphone in, one on my lap whilst I took a call on the train (no one immediately around me, as I’m very aware that this is irritating to other commuters).

The laptop comes out, goes away, the travel mug comes out, goes away. Many distractions later, I stand up and hear a plasticky click sound… I think nothing of it until I’m 5 minutes from my destination, and realise the earphone that was on my lap is missing.

I scan the immediate vicinity… nothing. I start rummaging in my bag… nothing. I then remember the clicking sound. Aha! That must’ve been my earphone hitting the floor.

I continue to hunt, conscious I’ll soon be needing to leave the train. There is nobody around me, it can’t have gone far, yet I cannot find it.

I was sat on one of the fold down seats next to the doors. So I start to look for small gaps it could have got lost in, and sure enough, I spot it in the tiniest earphone sized gap in the corner of the doors. I had to get down on my knees and look into the gap to find it, but how do I get it?

I start with seeing if my finger can fit… I just push it in further. Next I try a pen, but as vision is totally blocked, I miss and end up tucking it so far in it’s now out of sight.

My only hope now is we pull into one of the terminal platforms where the doors open on that side. Of course, the doors open on the other side. I have no time to wait, so I have a look at the doors that open to see if it would have been possible. Once the doors open, it did indeed reveal a perfect sized gap to reach where I think the earphone is now sitting. Very frustrating.

When leaving the train I took note of the doors, and at the front of the train I took note of the train number. I travel this route often… so who knows! I passed one of the attendants on the platform and asked if the front number on the train was an identifier, which he confirmed it was. I briefly explained why, and he said that these trains aren’t dedicated to a particular route, so it could be off to a totally different destination in the near future.

I spent the following weekend occasionally thinking about the missing earphone. Was it still on the train? Has it rolled out? Been crushed? Got water damaged?

Monday comes around and I’m off to the city again. On my way in, I got curious as to how one might track the train, so headed over to the ol’ reliable, Reddit.

A very helpful group of people on r/uktrains informed me the number was only HALF of what I needed to track the train, and was missing the first three digits which identified which type of train it was. Now THIS is getting exciting, I think to myself.

Fortunately, the knowledgeable folks on that sub were able to identify the train class from the first picture. Incredible! They also pointed me in the direction of something called “RTT”, which is a “real time trains” tracking website. Here I was able to type the full train number into the search bar, and it immediately popped up with the train! It was leaving Cambridge when I checked, and I was already close to London. “No luck today”.

The day passes as I took great joy telling some of my colleagues about “RTT”, including explaining that the trains itinerary for the day is not planned out, so you only know what the trains next journey is (if it has indeed been allocated one).

My day was actually a bit of a stinker. Got badly delayed at work due to various reasons, so wasn’t heading home until around 9pm.

Whilst sat on the Victoria line (where a particular stretch gets 5g), I decided once again to check the train, and it was actually heading past the destination I was headed, but in the opposite direction. I was going to be northbound from Tottenham Hale, and that train was on its way to Liverpool Street.

I checked my trains, and suddenly realised there was a very real chance that it could, in fact, be the train that was on its way to Liverpool Street. There was about 25 minutes between its arrival at Liverpool Street and my departure from Tottenham Hale. But now I had to wait until it past the arrival time for RTT to update.

Now I was in a stretch of the Victoria line that had no network connection, so I waited with bated breath… a get out at Tottenham Hale and check the app. It is. It’s the train. It’s the same. Bloody. Train.

Well, you can imagine my excitement. My mind was racing. My palms sweating. My heart thumping. Is it possible? Surely not. But… there’s a chance?

This feeling was dampened rather quickly when I noticed under the train info “5 coaches”. When I got the train, it was 10. So whilst the odds were already against me, they’d now been slashed in half. Just like the train had been earlier that day.

I get to the platform and watch as the train approaches. I desperately search for signs on the doors. The opposite side (where I had disembarked), had “17” on the doors. 2 doors a coach, 10 coaches. I must have been 4th door from the front (now 4th from the back). I counted the doors and rushed to where I thought the earphone was, but the train did not have 17 written outside of these doors. Why? Was this not the train? Was it because of its chop?

I had no time to think, and the train was unusually busy so I hopped on.

Unfortunately, where I had been sat (and where I had lost the earphone) was a man. Seated in the drop down chair. 3 suitcases around him. I had no way to check.

I sit on the edge of a seat, closest to the location in question. My eyes darting hither and thither, desperate for a sign. Just a clue, a glimmer of hope. I look at the two photos I had taken that fateful day. One of the floor where the earphone was, the other of my view from that seat. I’m not sure why I took the second photo, maybe I had anticipated this very moment in my subconscious?

I study the picture. I look in the reflections on the glass, I look for a piece of graffiti, an out of place screw hole. Nothing.

But then I notice it. The corner of the vinyl decal on the wall. It was lifted. I stand up, look at the vinyl and there it is. The lifted corner. The tell tale sign that I was, without a shadow of a doubt, in that very same carriage.

Now I had a mission. A purpose. I must check that gap, but how do I navigate the rocky terrain of a man who (judging by his luggage tags) may not speak English?

I was getting some funny looks at this point, as I was indeed acting a little suspicious. The “see it, say it, sorted” catch phrase echoed around my mind.

As we approached the first stop, I considered my options. I had a few stops on the way to my station, all of which opened on the “correct” side for me to look. However, I was conscious of being the “suspicious man fiddling with the train”. But I had no choice. If I let this opportunity pass me by, it may never come again.

As the train slowed, I noticed a man in the drop down seat on the “wrong” side of the doors get up. He was going to depart. The button would be pressed, the doors would be open, and an opportunity would be presented to me. I had to grab it.

So as he stood up, I placed my ruck sack against the wall where he was sat, and I left the train. The nerves were setting in as I tried to quickly say to the man in the chair I was looking for something. He turned away, seemingly uninterested in any attempt I was making to do something to the train.

As I bent down to floor level and extended my fingers towards the gap I realised something. I was all in black, at ground level, with my fingers in a gap that was about to be closed by a steel shutter. The train drive probably couldn’t see me, and when those doors shut, anything in that gap was going to be cut in half. I had to think quickly, was I going to do this? I knew the train made a noise to alert passengers before the doors shut, so i decided to take the risk. All those years of dynamic risk assessing came into play as I decided that I would go for it, and if I heard the beeping I would immediately disengage.

I stretched my fingers into the darkness, at first feeling cold, damp, gritty steel. But then… I felt something. A familiar, smooth plastic.

A simple roll of the earphone and I was able to pluck it from its miserable grave, and it was home. I stared down at my hand, in astonishment. The doors began their familiar beeping so I hopped back on, picked my bag up and sat back down in my seat, with “the man in the chair” still blissfully unaware of the achievement I had made.

The couple sat opposite me looked at me quizzically, wondering why after my strange behaviour was I staring at an ear phone. We started conversation and I explained what had happened. They were as shocked as I was, which I took great satisfaction in seeing. I believe “Sherlock Holmes” was banded around at some point.

I gave it a wipe and popped it back into the charging case. After a few minutes I decided to check if it had survived, and bingo.

Just as good as Friday.