I boarded a train today. Shortly after arriving at the station in question, I was informed by an automatic speaker message that the train I was about to board would, unfortunately, be approximately 29 minutes late.
"Ah", I thought.
Immediately after this announcement the seeds of a letter formed in my head. It would be a glorious letter of complaint, sent to Queensland Rail dripping with sarcasm and a biting caustic wit. In it I would announce the manner in which, when 29 minutes after its scheduled arrival the train in question arrived, I decided not to board it - confident as I was that around 1 minute later another train going the same way would be arriving - only to find out that no such train was to be forthcoming. Everyone from the nameless drone first to open the letter all the way up to the PR stooge tasked with crafting a response would know that the writing was on the wall. I'm on to you Queensland Rail. The revolution would have humble beginnings. Gradually, others, too would join me - each of us awaiting that fateful spring day in which we hoist our revolutionary flag over QRs offices ushering in a new dawn in which the railway would have the common fucking decency to acknowledge that a train arriving 29 minutes late is, in fact, the next train, and that those waiting for the train in question should be allowed their opportunity to grieve and achieve closure, as the train they were after is no more.
Three minutes after the announcement, however, I was informed that the train in question would arrive in two minutes.
Just so you all know where I'm at. In my life.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
6 comments:
I notice that in your blogroll at left, you describe this blog as being better than itself. I don't know what consequences this has for mathematics.
Well spotted Dave. Fitz, I demand that you change the heading to "A non-exhaustive list of sites at least as good as this one", or remove the offending entry, lest you cause the universe to explode.
Wow, what a story - you didn't think the train was going to come and then it did! It reminds me of that famous Dave Barry story about buying a meal.
I also agree that you should rewrite the heading/list.
I had expected one of you nerds to spot that before now.
It turns out that "better than" isn't a pre-ordering on web-sites, hey.
Martin: Whilst the post in question may be seen as taking some degree of inspiration from Dave's story, I wouldn't dream of trying to compete with such a contemporary classic as the Spag Bol story. Let's just say that I'm a petty man who gets very annoyed at small things.
Also, I suspect that maybe the earlier train was 35 minutes late.
P.S. Obviously I mean 'partial order' in the above post.
I think there is a reason why the train was late.
Post a Comment