From www.nevergoeswithoutsaying.blogspot.com written by MummyMaps writer, Sarah F.
I’m 26, just finishing a late night’s work in London. I set the office alarm, slam the door, walk the 10 minutes to the tube station…and realise I’ve left my wallet, my house keys, my tube pass and my reason at my desk. No way back into the office tonight, and this being the pre-mobilithic era, no cell phone to call for help. Home is 6 miles away.
I do what I always do – I find someone to talk to about the situation. It’s the compulsive habit formed by a small-town upbringing and, not for the first time, I’m glad of it. I look as small and pathetic as I can (yeah, yeah, not difficult even under the best of circumstances) and approach the station guard (is that what they’re called? The men in the luminous jackets who hang out at the Tube snarling at tourists).
At first, the conversation goes as you would expect:
“I don’t have my ticket”
“Buy a new one”
“I don’t have my wallet”
“How are you going to get home, then?”
but then something changes. Maybe the station guard thinks I’m actually going to cry on him. I’m shaking, sure, but that’s because I’d last eaten at midday and now it was 9:30 at night.File under: jobs I’m dead glad I no longer do. Also: stupidity of youth.
“Perhaps you could let me through without a ticket, just this once?” I ask in my nicest poor-idiotic-overwhelmed-no-threat-to-anyone guise.
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