Good karma; waiting for it to bite me
Oh, what a week. I did a two-day eventin D.C. with a bunch of middle-school students, and I had to be a good role model for clean living and healthy eating (somehow, chocolate chip cookies made their way into the boxed lunches the first day, and people got seriously bent out of shape about it; they are super hard-core). So, no Diet Coke in public, and I had to sneak up to my hotel room every couple of hours to get a fix. I felt as guilty as if I were sneaking out for a cigarette break, or a nip of whiskey in the middle of the day.
To reward myself for a job well done, I got Ben & Jerry's before hopping on the train back home, and was lamenting to the cashier that the Ben & Jerry's across the street from my office closed, so I wouldn't be able to get a free cone next week. And he said, "Oh, I wish you'd told me before I rang you up; I'd have given you that for free!" Which was awfully nice in and of itself, but then he dug up a coupon for a free ice cream, handed it over and said, "There you go! Free cone, right in your bag, any time you want!" A nice cap to a long first half of the week.
So I got home at like 11:30 Tuesday night, then returned to D.C. first thing yesterday morning for a half-day meeting. The earliest return train I could make didn't stop in Metropark, but I couldn't bear the thought of being in D.C. any longer, so I took Amtrak to Trenton, and hopped on New Jersey Transit to my car in Metropark. Only I realized, with a fairly audible "Oh, shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhiiihhh-iiihhh-hittttt!" that I had inadvertently gotten a ticket to Metuchen, which is one stop closer to Trenton, and the place I most wanted to be in the world, but not without my car. Rather than buy another ticket, I decided just to chance it and hope it'd be one of those trips when the conductor doesn't walk through the car at every station stop.
I just looked it up online, and it turns out that the ticket price is exactly the same, so probably no one would have cared about my mistake, but I got all worked up about it, wondering whether the conductor would think I was trying to put one over on him by playing the dumb, ditzy girl. As opposed to, you know, actually being the dumb, ditzy girl that I've been for the better part of this week.
But anyway, karma was on my side, I guess, because the conductor did not come through before the Metuchen stop, and I stood waiting by the door pretty much as soon as we left that station, so when he finally did walk through before Metropark, and sized me up, trying to figure out whether he needed to take a ticket from me, I just said, "Oh, I got on in Trenton, and I'm getting off at the next stop." All of which was true. Phew.
Funnily -- to me, anyway -- I ran into some colleagues in Trenton right after I'd gotten the wrong ticket, and they were like, "Ha! Hope you get busted." I emailed them to say I'd gotten away with it, and it turned out they got on the train to Pittsburgh instead of the train to D.C. So, ha!
That does make me wonder, though, when my own luck's going to turn. My fingers are crossed that it doesn't happen this weekend at the Bodies exhibit, because that could be pretty gross.
To reward myself for a job well done, I got Ben & Jerry's before hopping on the train back home, and was lamenting to the cashier that the Ben & Jerry's across the street from my office closed, so I wouldn't be able to get a free cone next week. And he said, "Oh, I wish you'd told me before I rang you up; I'd have given you that for free!" Which was awfully nice in and of itself, but then he dug up a coupon for a free ice cream, handed it over and said, "There you go! Free cone, right in your bag, any time you want!" A nice cap to a long first half of the week.
So I got home at like 11:30 Tuesday night, then returned to D.C. first thing yesterday morning for a half-day meeting. The earliest return train I could make didn't stop in Metropark, but I couldn't bear the thought of being in D.C. any longer, so I took Amtrak to Trenton, and hopped on New Jersey Transit to my car in Metropark. Only I realized, with a fairly audible "Oh, shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhiiihhh-iiihhh-hittttt!" that I had inadvertently gotten a ticket to Metuchen, which is one stop closer to Trenton, and the place I most wanted to be in the world, but not without my car. Rather than buy another ticket, I decided just to chance it and hope it'd be one of those trips when the conductor doesn't walk through the car at every station stop.
I just looked it up online, and it turns out that the ticket price is exactly the same, so probably no one would have cared about my mistake, but I got all worked up about it, wondering whether the conductor would think I was trying to put one over on him by playing the dumb, ditzy girl. As opposed to, you know, actually being the dumb, ditzy girl that I've been for the better part of this week.
But anyway, karma was on my side, I guess, because the conductor did not come through before the Metuchen stop, and I stood waiting by the door pretty much as soon as we left that station, so when he finally did walk through before Metropark, and sized me up, trying to figure out whether he needed to take a ticket from me, I just said, "Oh, I got on in Trenton, and I'm getting off at the next stop." All of which was true. Phew.
Funnily -- to me, anyway -- I ran into some colleagues in Trenton right after I'd gotten the wrong ticket, and they were like, "Ha! Hope you get busted." I emailed them to say I'd gotten away with it, and it turned out they got on the train to Pittsburgh instead of the train to D.C. So, ha!
That does make me wonder, though, when my own luck's going to turn. My fingers are crossed that it doesn't happen this weekend at the Bodies exhibit, because that could be pretty gross.
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