On Friday this dear sweat lady boarded the bus with an other dear sweet old lady and two kindly gentlemen. She carefully handed me a ticket, helpfully proclaiming it to be a Weekly Group Ticket.(1) It was a weekly group ticket but it had expired the day before. I gently and sorrowfully explained to the poor lady that the ticket had run out and she would have to pay to travel. The silly old bat wasn’t having any of this. “It’s a weekly ticket, we can use it.” she proclaimed. “I bought it last Friday.” I again explained that it had yesterday’s date next to where it said “Expirery Date.” and this meant that she could not use it. By now the queue behind her stretched twice the length of the bus and my chances of leaving on time were vanishing faster than glaciers in Greenland. But still the witch didn’t seem to understand that the ticket was no good. So I tried some thing simple, I said,” You bought this ticket on Friday, that’s the first day, Saturday is the 2nd day and so on till we reached Thursday the 7th day. To day is the 8th day, so the ticket has run out.”
The Hag from Hell then tried a different track, “The driver I bought it from said I could use it for a week.” I agreed but told her the week was up, patiently counting on my fingers to try and prove to this Handmaiden from Hell that if she bought a weekly ticket last Friday then by this Friday it had expired, ceasing to perform any task other than as bookmark or as is more usual, litter. Still Satan’s mum refused to be persuaded, still insisting that a) invading Russia was a good idea and b) it was a weekly ticket and she had her companions could travel to Paignton.
I by now was conscious of growing unrest in the queue behind, something had to be do. “I am sorry dear lady,” I tried, “but the only way you are going to get to Paignton on this or an other bus is to give me £8.40.” (2)
Death stared me in the face! But the power of the Medusa must have waned over the centuries and I survived, just. Eventually she managed to locate her companions on the bus and explain the situation to then. She had better luck explaining than I had when I had tried to explain to her. One of her male companions took about 2.607 seconds to leave the bus, telling everyone within earshot ( most of Torbay and parts of Newton ) that I was trying to rob poor innocent people and he would sooner walk to Paignton. (3) After much scraping about in pockets and purses £6.30 was produced and slammed down on the cash tray. Then I could board the rest of the passengers, about 45 of them by now, and leave 10 mins late for Paignton, Torquay and Newton. So if you are waiting for a bus and it’s late and you ask the driver why it’s late, don’t be surprised when he says,
“Road works mate, sorry.”
Footnotes
(1) Weekly Group Tickets are a bargain, up to five people (or 4 people and a dog) can travel on all Stagecoach buses in Devon for a week. (4)
(2) £8.40 is the cost of 4 single fares from Brixham to Paignton, I wasn’t soliciting for a bribe.
(3) The walk to Paignton can be quite nice if you follow the coast, but it is 5 miles.
(4) A week is 7 days and the ticket starts on the day you buy it.
P.S. Due to a rise in the cost of fuel the above fares are now out of date until the cost of fuel returns to its former level. Some hope!
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