It's always the same. Whenever I decide to pop down to Chippenham Station to buy a new monthly season ticket, there they are. They may be directly in front of me in the queue, or they maybe be three or four places ahead, but whenever I go to the ticket office, they're always lurking...and they always reach the counter before me: the pensioner couple buying their tickets for a trip a few weeks in advance. Usually they'll be wearing matching anoraks and their conversation with the ticket office staff member will go something like this...
"Hullo...my wife and I would like to buy a ticket to visit her sister in Bournemouth on the first Sunday after a full moon in July. And we'd like to buy the cheapest possible tickets known to humanity."
"Ok, sir, is that a return?"
"Yes, but we'll be returning on the second Saturday of Lent. And we'd like to come back via High Wycombe. Oh, and we'll be bringing a sheep with us."
"First class or standard class?"
"Depends whether there's a 't' in the name of the day."
"Will you be travelling out after 9.25am?"
"I will...but my wife won't. She'll be catching a different train at Melksham, then leaping from the roof of her carriage onto the roof of mine at Swindon like in Von Ryan's Express...as long as her arthritis isn't giving her gip...in which case we'll need someone to meet her own the platform and carry her in a fireman's lift to the toilet and back again..."
And on it goes for hour after hour: the most complex travel arrangements of all time, booked months in advance while the queue for the ticket office grows ever longer and the FGW staff member begins to look increasingly desperate. Trains come and go, but no one can catch one while this couple drone on and on ad nauseum about their epic trip to Bournemouth.
At moments like these, I can actually feel my life force ebbing away as time ticks away and that 20 minutes of free parking expires, but to head back to the car will mean losing my place in the queue and the potential to come back and find anther pensioner couple ahead of me planning a trip as detailed as Operation Overlord.
After a further 15 minutes, the discussion reaches its climax when the ticket staff chap finally reveals the price for this epic jaunt and the pension couple suck in their breaths and turn ashen. They look at each other, confer inaudibly, then tell the ticket chap:
"I think we'll come back next week."
Arrgh!
Monday, 14 April 2008
The trouble with queuing
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9 comments:
Perhaps a little harsh- retired people should enjoy their retirement!
But surely you have a season ticket....?
After following old folks round Waitrose this lunchtime, I think you should have to show a p60 to get into a supermarket at lunchtime. Perhaps a similar principel could be applied to ticket offices?
I agree Tim. I've always lobbied hard for the idea of banning pensioners from shops at the weekend - particularly bakeries where they lurk a lot. I mean, c'mon, they've had all week to do their shopping and they still insist on clogging up the aisles on Saturday and Sunday too. Outrageous!
Whilst it is infuriating to be stuck behind an overly simple person with overly complex requirements, surely the vast range of available tickets does nothing to expedite the situation.
You can now renew your season ticket online.
oh my! that is so funny. Made me have a little smile to start my day off. Its funny coz its true lol
Next time, you ought to gently remind the elderly people that they can now travel from one end of the country to the other for nothing, using their free bus passes.
That should get them out of the train station.
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As this was at Chippenham - you forgot one thing. There would only be one window open - and finally after queueing for half an hour to get your tickets - you find there are THREE people on the footbridge checking the tickets !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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