Cheques and balances gone amok

I swiped my Luas Smart Card(tm), heard the dingggg, and after a brief wait got onto the tram. A few stops later, I got off and tried to swipe the card to mark that I was done---bzzzt, the card reader was out of order. Crap! I feared I'd be billed for the ride all the way to Tallaght and pay the full return fare of 4 Euros.

I went over to the other side, expecting that one to work. Bzzzt. Memories came flooding in of the 45 Euros I paid as the Standard Fare (hah!) when I spaced out and forgot to use my damn card---what if it wasn't just 4 Euros? (Of course when I got stuck having not paid for my ride, they weren't yet asking for any form of identification. I could have made up any name I wanted. Tsk, tsk.)

Was it worth the hassle to actually call Veolia, the sex-organ-sounding owner of the Luas, and ask? You bet.

A nice lady said I'd only be responsible for the cost of going to the next region---about 65 cents. Nothing to worry about, really. Well, just to see if they can credit your account automatically, I asked how I could be refunded the balance of 65 cents. The lady thought I was nuts. No way to do that automatically, sir. Really? That's okay, I'm not in a rush.

A week later, I received a cheque (costing 55 cents in postage) signed by two Luas employees with signature authority.

The time and effort spent making this happen? About 15 minutes.

The cost of seeing a silly bureaucratic system bending over backwards to simply fulfill its own silly rules?

Priceless.

The Fearless of the Luas

Going from Connolly on the Luas this morning, I saw in one human being all that is wrong with the world.

He'd been waiting outside puffing on his fag like the world was about to end. The bells on the Luas tram began to sound and the lights blinking, telling us it was about to go. Mr Smoker cast aside his butt and dove in just as the doors were closing. His plaid jacket only just avoided being caught.

It turned out he knew another guy standing inside and began to talk. This is where reality became too harsh: the first 2--3 sentences were accented by wafts of smoke streaming out of his mouth. It easily went for a full minute of talking and exhaling. It reminded me of the foggy breath you get in the winter when it's brutally cold and if you're a kid, or with a kid, or feel like being a kid, you deliberately blow air out of your lungs just for the novelty of seeing it take form in front of you.

The aroma of his habit was omni-present throughout the tram, even when the doors opened and closed at each stop on the way to where I needed to get off. Mr Smoker and his friend were having a loud discussion about some topic I've since blocked from my memory. When I described it to a friend, they said it sounded just like like Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie playing "the shouting business men", two guys only a few inches apart but still using that trademark call for attention.

Just as we're slowing down, Mr Smoker cemented himself in my long-term memory. He reached down and unzipped his pants, reached inside to adjust---his underwear, I'm sure, then zipped them back up again. All while shouting with his travel-mate. By now the smoke had stopped coming out of his mouth.

Therapy, that's all that could help...

I laugh out loud on the Luas.....alone

People often tell me that i think to much. I agree. Problem is that if I am not thinking about something I get really bored and generally want to go to sleep.

Well this evening I was on the Luas and was thinking about misheard lyrics. You all know some and there are sites dedicated to them like Am I Right? Well I was sitting there thinking about ones I had heard before and the best one to date is from U2's Mysterious Way's.

Original "She moves in mysterious ways"
Misheard "Shamu the mysterious whale"

I'm sorry but the thought of Bono singing about a mysterious whale just set me into a fit of laughter. Now if I had earphones on or something I would have been fine but no.... A little old lady who was sitting next me turned, stared and moved to another seat. In fact it was her moving that got people staring to be honest, probably thought I was laughing at her or something.

So anyway I carried on looking out the window pretending to be normal when I remembered a friend who used to insert a very racist comment into Christy Moore's song A Biko Drum. He did this completely unintentionally and when I said it to him he could not believe what he had been singing for years.

Original "All the Blacks and the Colours play the Biko drum"
Misheard "All the Blacks in the corner play the Biko drum"

So anyway I was thinking of this and let out another guffaw. Thankfully we were pulling into Windy Arbour so I was able to escape the stares.

Moral of the story is always to wear headphones when alone on the Luas. Please feel free to share any misheard lyrics!!