In which Vic huffs and puffs and swears a lot

Lately, due to the unfortunate demise of my car (an incident involving large amounts of oil loss, a sleep on the side of the road, a few kilometres walk and eventual abandonment of the offending vehicle), I have resorted to the "Track and Treadley" method of getting to work on those days that the Roster Gods decide to bestow a shift upon me.

Generally I'll hop on the bike at about half past three in the morning and zoom on down to the station. It's about a ten minute ride. Not far, and only one bitchy uphill in it all. The rest is exhilaratingly downward - especially when you've not long been awake. Actually, when you're still really not awake. A quick sling of the treadley over the shoulder, slog up and over on the stairs and I'm there: a platform that seems like it's on the edge of nowhere. The Last Outpost Before the Crossing of The Great Swamp. But here's where the fun begins. Here there is no ticket machine.

Well you just hop on don't you? There's no such thing as turnstiles at the other end around here. You get on, you get off. Mostly it's honour and policing.

Honour. Pffft. I could buy a ticket at the other end. There's a ticket machine where I step off. But why buy a ticket when you know that you've already scored the ride for free?

It's also become a bit of a fuck you stance on my behalf. We're pushed all the time to utilise public transport, yet it takes you four times as long to get anywhere. And cost? You want me to pay my taxes and then shell out on top of that another four bucks for a ten minute trip on a train that runs only once an hour and sometimes, occasionally, gets to the station on time? Fuck you.

Uhuh. Fuck you... until the potential of getting busted looms. Lack of honour meets policing.

Like last night. I hopped on at my station, contemplating what I was going to do with myself being nearly an hour early for work. I was in the midst of a hazy locker-organising dream when I spied the pair of befatted blue uniformed transport cops working their way toward me from the back of the carriage. Fuck you became Aww FuckIt! rather quickly. I'd cleaned my wallet out completely at home and left not a cent in there, so I couldn't even fall back on the idea of buying a ticket at the other end. What if I pretend I'm asleep? Nope, they saw me get on with my shining silver steed. What if I say I'll buy a return on the way home? Nope. These people are pretend cops, puffed up on their own authority. Not a chance in hell. BAIL!!!

Luckily, some poor bitch was in the same predicament as I was, and a little closer to them. She held them up for just enough ticket-writing time for me to get lined up at the doors to bail at the next station. So fine was the timing that one of them even offered to help me with my bike at the door.

Escaped! Phew!

Now I am at a station halfway between home and work. My regular station, The Last Outpost Before the Crossing of The Great Swamp has been left far behind and we're now right in the middle of it. I am now at The Birthplace of Mosquito. Seriously, the people here have followed the Australian supersizing tradition and have stuck a big mosquito likeness on a pole to show what they are famous for. The next train is a whole blood-draining hour away. And it will arrive after I am due to start work.

Aww FUCKIT!

So I huffed and puffed and swore a lot. I slogged away on the trusty treadley, headed for work the hard way, huffing more and puffing more and swearing quite a lot more.

Have I learned my lesson? Maybe enough to carry four bucks with me just in case. Probably not. The danger of being caught is still by far outweighed by my views of if the system is fucked, fuck the system.

Juvenile?
Probably.

Cost-effective?

So far.