Joe: So, uh, how’s your day goin’?
Kristin: Oh, it could have started off better. Actually, I feel like I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
Joe: Why, what happened?
Kristin: Well, things were going okay. I mean I’d gotten the e-mails done. I’d gotten all the dishes done. Took a shower. Got ready to go. Um, but as usual, I was running against the clock, trying to, uh, get down and catch the train on time.
Joe: Yeah.
Kristin: So, I got on the train. I go in the back like I usually do because I have a pass. Sit down, we go one stop. We, we’re actually coming up to 18th, y’know, just the next stop. And I see the, the ticket checkers, for lack of a better word…
Joe: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I know who you’re talkin’ about.
Kristin: People who are always checking for passes…
Joe: Right.
Kristin: …they’re on and I thought, okay, great, yeah, I’ve, y’know, I’ve got my pass on me. So one of them comes up to me asking to see my pass. I start looking in my bag for the place that I always keep it, and it’s not there.
Joe: Oh, are you serious?
Kristin: So, yeah! I’m looking, looking, thinking, oh where is it? Then suddenly…eh, y’know, and this is after, too, I start checking my pants and just racking my brain tryin’ to think of where, where my pass could be. Then suddenly it dawned on me that I had left it in the pocket of a pair of pants that I’d worn two days before to work.
Joe: Oh, and they were still at home, I’m sure.
Kristin: Yes, they were still at home. So, I start explaining this to the woman. And, she, um, she whips her clipboard out. And I’m like, “Y’know, I just got on.” And she’s like, “Oh right here?” ‘Coz, y’know, we’d just gotten to 18th Street. And I was like, “No, no, no, no, I, I, um, I got on just one stop back at 20th. But I always have my pass on me and that’s why I got on the back. I’ve got money. I can go up and pay right now.” And she’s like, “Oh, just hold on a second.” And she starts writing.
Joe: Let me guess. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that she still gave you the ticket.
Kristin: Yes. I still got the citation. So, but, I thought that there still might be hope. So I keep trying to ask her questions, or… And letting her know I can go and pay. And she’s like, “Just, just hold on, let me, let me focus on this and we’ll talk in a minute when I get done writing.” So then I start panicking, thinking, oh great, I am getting it, for sure. And I remember back to somebody telling me that they’d gotten one, a ticket once before on the train and, um, for not havin’ their pass, and it ended up costing ‘em like 250 bucks…