Wednesday, March 4, 2009

The Dog Ate My Train Ticket


So there's cutting corners at times when you really feel like you wanna tempt fate. Those corners include parking at a meter knowing full well you will never make it back to feed the meter, there's those times you hop in the Fasttrack lane, knowing that the bridge transponder lives somewhere in the cavity of your car, will it chime to debit my account or flag me as a deadbeat?
Ive always envisioned a karmic circle circling back around representing bits and pieces of the goodness we pay into mankind. Social pleasantries. Take pictures of tourists, throwing the extra buck to the Muni bus driver covering the guy behind you..but I need to think that through on a more transcendental level.

Could be a tall order without a magic brownie moment, but I digress.... karma....

Hopping on the VTA train today with my weekly pass (Cinequest) realizing It's not on my person...no worries as I have a handful of those wacky Sacajawea gold dollar coins (only available here, thanks VTA and the post office) apparently the VTA machines that spit those stupid coins out as change don't want to except them back for payment. Same machine, reverse the sequence... So after mentally arm wrestling with the ticket machine and seeing no ticket forth coming and the bell ringing on the train, alerting emanate departure I hop back on.
Likity split right after me the VTA "fare police" steps on board. How do I know it's the fare police? Black trench coats, FARE POLICE imprinted boldly (think DIA style) Always had a thing for policemen but this is a little too goth.

Of all of the trains I have ridden all over the globe, legitly purchasing fare religiously one would think a karmic bank had been built up fort knox sized magnitude putting the IMF to shame.

Today my karma ran out. Mr. Fare Police didn't care about my story, about where my ticket was only to say it was not on my person. No ticket=receive a ticket, ala gift of the magi. So sweet.
Not so much.

The worse part was the scolding- that and knowing I really did have a ticket, I wasn't a deadbeat fare dodger. Just an unorganized under caffeinated loser. Nicely dressed. Didn't matter.

The good news ? The system works. I am double dog sure the next time I step aboard any train, bus, plane, ferry I will double check to see my ticket. Does lightning strike twice? The odds are it will never happen again but be sure if it does I will also purchase a lottery ticket as a hedge to the odds pool.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i sure hope your day ended better than it started..

this might cheer you up...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNmcf4Y3lGM

The Buzz said...

THX for the video. Loved that it was a tribute to my uber crush of last week Peter Schiff.