Commuting is the bane of many peoples lives. Personally, I don’t mind it. This is mainly as I only have to do it once or twice a week at most. The rest of the time I’m no more than a 15 minute drive from the office.
Today I headed into London so I had to get the train, and in order to do that I had to queue with everyone else to get my ticket. This created problem number one: The ticket machine wouldn’t take my notes, or cards, so I had to queue at the ticket office. Problem number two: Only two of the three ticket booths was open, ensuring that the queue was rather long for that time of the morning. I was about fifteenth in line and had twelve minutes till my train departs. My morning continued thus.
Someone wants a Student railcard. The Bastard. What kind student gets a railcard at 7:45am? All students are in bed at this time sleeping off hangovers. This person is clearly a fraud and should be exterminated. Unless of course they really are a student, in which case they should be exterminated. That’s one window out of commission for several minutes and the queue grows anxious.
“Can I go in front of you, I’m going to miss my train” A youngish Eastern European lady asks me from behind.
“I’m afraid not, because I’ll miss mine as well”, I reply.
“But I’ll lose my job if I’m late!”
“So? You should get up earlier then”
“But I only over slept, please, I really need to get into work on time today, I’m on a last warning”
“So this is a regular occurence? In that case any minuscule amounts of sympathy I had for you just disappeared. You can stay behind me”
This is where the waterworks started. The silly cow. It was just slight simpering at first, escalating to full-on wailing and gnashing of teeth when I ignored her. This may work on others, but not me. Even when she started beating the floor in a toddler style tantrum I didn’t budge.
Anyway, I got to the front, ahead of her, and got my ticket.
The train was cancelled.
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mighty wright · April 4, 2006 at 9:23 am
and at all of these stations, the constant message is ” arrive early, so your train isnt late” .
“Well yes, I’ll arrive early, but make sure your fucking ticket machine works wont you”…..
You would have thought that they didnt want to sell tickets?!?!
Admin comment by Mr Angry · April 4, 2006 at 1:26 pm
MW – no matter how short they are of staff to sell you a ticket, there’s always plenty on the train to fine you…
mighty wright · April 4, 2006 at 2:00 pm
indeed. a bit like banks, they make more money in charges and fines than they do via actually selling products. twats.
fatmammycat · April 5, 2006 at 1:12 pm
Ha! I work here in my apartment, it takes me… oh say, about eighteen seconds to get from my bedroom to my desk. And yes, I am indeed gloating. You could probably tell from the ‘Ha!’
Admin comment by Mr Angry · April 5, 2006 at 3:13 pm
fatmammycat – but you’ll never get to have a lie-in and use the excuse “the traffic was bad”…
Four Dinners · April 5, 2006 at 6:39 pm
Never been on a train since steam went away. What’s it like if it isn’t cancelled?
Admin comment by Mr Angry · April 5, 2006 at 7:49 pm
Hello Four dinners – when I get one that isn’t cancelled, I’ll let you know…