The train was coming, so I ran into the station and scrabbled for my Yearly ticket. But I couldn’t find it. It wasn’t in my wallet. I pulled all the extraneous crap out to look for it… stamps… business card… Brumby’s baked-goods-frequent-eater (or whatever it’s called) but no luck. Dammit.

The train came and left. Oh well, nothing for it but to buy a ticket. I dug a $10 note out to buy a Daily. People were using the machine, so I sidled up to the booking office window (I am truly blessed — my station has staff who can sell you a ticket, rather than leaving you to the mercy of the Kelvinators).

The lady behind the counter recognised me. She said my mugshot is in the Connex newsletter. Ahh… so that explains why I’ve been recognised a couple of times by Connex staff recently.

I validated the ticket, then went to slip it into my shirt pocket, where I always keep my ticket when it’s not in my wallet. And there in that pocket… you can guess… I found the Yearly, which I then recalled I’d slipped into the shirt pocket 10 minutes earlier to save time at the station.

Dammit. (Grumpy Twitter post from the station.)

But there’s a happy ending. In the evening I encountered a lady who had locked all her belongings, including her wallet, inside one of the Ross House offices. She needed to get home, and had no money. I was able to — with no skin off my nose — give her my superfluous Daily ticket, and to use my Yearly to get home. (Yes, I made sure to give her the correct ticket.)

Afterwards I recalled some newish regulation about not sharing tickets. Must look up the details of that to see if what I did is against the rules…