Friday 12 March 2010

Yes, things are quiet

Got no wheels at the moment, and I seem to get most of my blogging inspiration from riding. The bike is in the shop, getting the TLC that I never give it. Unfortunately, bike shops don't open at 0700 and close at 1900, which would allow me to drop it off before work and pick it up after work. Most seem to open at 1000 and close at 1500. That can mean days between drop off and pick up, even if the work only takes the mechanic an hour.

I did see a scammer on the bus this morning though. She got on the bus, claiming she couldn't find her money in her purse and and had no bus pass. After about 30 seconds of time wasting, the driver told her to sit down - but pay him before she got off the bus.

She was well dressed - designer sunglasses, designer handbag and plenty of jewellry, and she made a big act of searching through her purse. I was sitting across the aisle and reading a magazine at the time, but she made such a production of it, I couldn't help but glance across at the end of every paragraph.

Around paragraph 20, I noticed that she in fact had a $20 note in her purse - but as soon as she found it, she buried it under a stack of receipts (she had about 50 taxi receipts I noticed - her purse had more crap in it than most septic tanks). At paragraph 40, she made a huffing noise to say, "I can't find it", and then gave up the search. She then pulled out a new looking phone, and checked for messages. Finding no messages, she then pulled a new looking Blackberry and spent the rest of the trip into town with her nose in the Blackberry, doing her best to avoid making eye contact with the driver. They looked new to me, because my phone (a bit over a year old) is scratched, battered, cracked and worn down to bare metal in most places.

I hoped she would get off before me, so I could yell, "Don't forget to pay the driver with that twenty before you get off the bus", but alas, I disembarked before her.

1 comment:

Richard_H said...

My bikes in the shop at the moment too. Very keen to get it back, should've been yesterday but upon ringing them to enquire as to its status, I was informed they're not too sure where it is....

I'm a little annoyed at the moment. Especially since I'm doing the Big Brisbane ride on Saturday and I'd like to do it on my Roadie..... Grrrrrrr....