What goes around, comes around.

I am familiar with karma. Or I should say karma is familiar with me. I knew it would get back at me for laughing. But I couldn’t help it. As I stood in line for a bus/ tram pass on Tuesday, for over an hour, rather than keeping track of the ticket numbers as they were being called, I decided to count the number of people who tripped on the stair walking into the office. 

Final count: 32. I also brainstormed some ways for this to be fixed, since clearly yellow and black striped tape isn’t enough. My ideas all involve some sort of wild animal or privacy invasion, however, which clearly have some kinks that need to be worked out themselves. 

I was curious about what was going to happen to me, but luckly I didn’t wait for long (ironic word choice, indeed, as you will see). I found out on Wednesday at work that I would have to purchase an “abonnement” where you pay a certain amount annually and get half price on all train tickets within Switzerland. I went back to the train station that night and pulled a number from the train office, which just so happens to sit right across the hall from the bus/ tram place… and the stair. I pulled number B1746. When I got there, they were at B1436. I was hoping that the numbers went by the hundreds, fiftys, a random number generator... but I couldn’t have been more wrong. They went one-by-one, and I found out there were also some unrelated A numbers mixed in. 

 

I waited for almost an hour (the number was still in the 1500s), then remembered that I needed to buy a first class train ticket to the town I’m going to on Friday for work as well. I changed my selection for what I needed at the little number dispenser, got a new “A” ticket, and my number came up 5 minutes later. The person who helped me was nice but noted I needed a passport picture for my abonnement thing, which obviously I didn’t have. After getting all of the paperwork done, trying to find somewhere in the train station to get my picture taken, bringing it back to the office, and waiting in line again, this was a two hour process. Total payback as anyone who has had to wait at a government office would understand. When I finally left, the ticket numbers were still in the 1500s. Seriously.