Today I had a bit of a scare on the Metro. While I have a monthly metro pass that provides unlimited rides, my pass had expired yesterday. Since you have to renew your pass in person (at least to my knowledge) and the related office is only open during the week, my plan was to do so tomorrow before work. One problem…in rushing for the metro, I forgot about my lapsed pass and the resulting need to buy a single use ticket.
Typically this wouldn’t be an issue. As I’ve written before, it is very rare to actually get checked for your ticket. Those who typically do get caught riding sans billet (and have to pay the related fine) are generally those that repeatedly try to game the system. However, during stop number one of my two-stop journey, guess who boarded the train: the metro “police”. Since I didn’t notice until the doors had closed, I now had to survive one stop (about a minute) without being asked to show my ticket.
Fortunately, I played things exceptionally cool by immediately turning beet red and probably looking like Newman during his interrogation of Seinfeld in the mail fraud episode...
Typically this wouldn’t be an issue. As I’ve written before, it is very rare to actually get checked for your ticket. Those who typically do get caught riding sans billet (and have to pay the related fine) are generally those that repeatedly try to game the system. However, during stop number one of my two-stop journey, guess who boarded the train: the metro “police”. Since I didn’t notice until the doors had closed, I now had to survive one stop (about a minute) without being asked to show my ticket.
Fortunately, I played things exceptionally cool by immediately turning beet red and probably looking like Newman during his interrogation of Seinfeld in the mail fraud episode...
Put in proper perspective, the worst case scenario wasn’t that bad – I’d simply have to pay a CHF 80 fine (effectively $80). However, from my internal response you’d think that I’d committed some capital crime and was now a fugitive running for my life.
As the officers came closer and the metro seemed to inch forward at a molasses pace, my fate seemed to be sealed. I felt like the officers had their sights focused squarely on me. With each person that they checked I hoped that they would come across someone else who hadn’t paid. But no “luck”. I was the only freeloader, it seemed. And then my savior…a bulldog puppy that couldn’t have been more than a couple of months old.
Less than six feet from my certain apprehension, the two officers were distracted by the puppy and in the thirty seconds they petted and played with it, the metro eased into the next stop providing me with the long awaited opportunity exit the train and walk briskly to my freedom. Had I the time, I would have taken a picture to post here, but s/he looked something like the picture below…
As the officers came closer and the metro seemed to inch forward at a molasses pace, my fate seemed to be sealed. I felt like the officers had their sights focused squarely on me. With each person that they checked I hoped that they would come across someone else who hadn’t paid. But no “luck”. I was the only freeloader, it seemed. And then my savior…a bulldog puppy that couldn’t have been more than a couple of months old.
Less than six feet from my certain apprehension, the two officers were distracted by the puppy and in the thirty seconds they petted and played with it, the metro eased into the next stop providing me with the long awaited opportunity exit the train and walk briskly to my freedom. Had I the time, I would have taken a picture to post here, but s/he looked something like the picture below…
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