Gotta Catcha train!

I was in a hurry.
I had the camera so I could take pictures, I had maps detailing where the Chinese Embassy was in London together with the route I should walk from Euston to join the demonstration in Portland Place. All I needed was some cash, and a snack to keep me going on the first demonstration I was going to in years.
The car wouldn’t start.
I turned off the ignition and tried again, hoping that the strange dry choking sound wouldn’t be repeated.
It spluttered into life, and I was off. I’d jumped the first hurdle.
‘First stop the supermarket to get some money and food,’ I thought realising at the same time that I didn’t have my watch. I glanced at the clock in the car. The car clock tends to keep its own time, trailing grudgingly and unpredictably behind Greenwich Mean Time. I had no idea what the actual time was. Nor for that matter did I have any idea as to what time the train was due to leave for London.
I had wanted to find out the train times and had sat at the computer patiently waiting for it to load earlier that morning. When it did finally finish loading there was a red virus alert warning on the screen.
Apparently, a Trojan horse had somehow plodded in and was now waiting impatiently deep inside my computer system ready to disgorge its poisonous entrails. Somewhere in the virtual universe some low-life hacker had managed to send his corrupt Neddy-beast in my direction.
My anti-virus software told me that they’d rounded up the old nag and had corralled it in a quiet corner of the computer and all I had to do was to follow the instructions on the screen in order to send it to the knackers’ yard.
An hour later, after following the instructions: installing all the updates, shutting down the computer and restarting the computer, the screen message demanded that I should shut down and restart for a fourth time. There was now no time left now to search the web for the train times; but there was still time to find the details about the demonstration. I printed them off stuffed them into my bag and set off, I could read them on the train.

In the supermarket the two ‘Basket Only’ checkouts were free, and the packed sandwiches were close by. I quickly picked up two packets and turned to the checkouts.
Both were now busy.
The man I was now queuing behind seemed to have stuffed a month’s shopping into his basket. The cashier was struggling to lift and find the bar code for the huge sack of dried dog food, large enough to feed Cerberus for a year, which filled the entire conveyer belt. It finally took the two of them to raise the packet over the scanner and for the satisfying bleep to be heard.
The man dawdled over the packing of the rest of his shopping, before slowly searching for his wallet to pay. His slow motion movements were oblivious to my ‘one step, two step’ imaginary dance to the mantra, ‘Gotta catcha train, Gotta catcha train.’
He was in no hurry to return to his Hell hound.
Finally though, he shuffled away and the cashier stroked my three items slowly over the scanner. I asked for ‘Cashback’ and with rapid dancing fingers pressed in my pin number into the pad.
‘Oh,’ said the cashier as she opened the till. ‘I don’t have enough notes.’ She switched on the blinking light that strikes dread in all shoppers and smiled at me. ‘Won’t be long,’ she cooed.
She lied.

Just where had I parked the car?
It had been easy to spot the car last week due to the Tibetan flag that had been flying from its aerial, but I’d already put the flag in my bag ready for the demo to save time. Now the car with its indistinctive red colour matched every other car in the car park.
‘The next time I buy a car it will be pink,’ I thought when I finally found it nestled between two similar coloured cars.

Of course all the traffic lights were on red.
A lovely old lady, bent double, and using her stick for support, slowly and painfully crossed at a pedestrian crossing while I patiently waited. The traffic lights flashed orange and then green as I waited for her. There was still plenty of time to catch the train. I mused as she reached the middle of the road.

The train station was at last ahead, and it was with relief that I pulled into the car park.

I’d made it!

This was the moment when I remembered that I had no change for the pay and display machine, all my mini-stash of coins having been previously raided by a sweet hungry teenager.
Unruffled I headed towards the cabin where four months ago they’d been someone who could exchange notes for coins.
The cabin door was closed and locked.
I approached a man who was busily feeding one of the machines. He didn’t have any change and possessively guarded the coins in his hand from my covetous eyes.
Another soul kindly exchanged my £5 note for coins. I triumphantly returned to the nearby ticket machine.
I whipped in the coins and waited for the ticket.
Nothing.
I pressed the green button again. I had paid in £5. The machine agreed that I’d paid £5. I checked for coins that had been returned and again pressed the green button.
Nothing.
I pressed the button again.
Nothing.
I peered into every orifice that the machine had.
Nothing.
Despairing I ran to the train station and spoke to the ticket inspector.
‘Just put a note on your car explaining what has happened,’ he said calmly.
‘But I don’t want my car to get clamped, or to get a fine,’ I wailed anxiously.
‘You can always appeal when you do,’ the ticket inspector replied patiently. ‘Just write the number of the ticket machine on your note, and the time you paid and place it in your car window. The machine might have run out of paper.’
He smiled genially at some calm passengers who showed him their tickets before moving onto the platform to wait for the London train. There were other relaxed souls unhurriedly purchasing their train tickets at the counters behind them.
I could feel beads of sweat on my brow. I raced back to the car park. It was a place where couples were struggling to find the right change for the machine. Husbands whose wives were carrying handbags seemed to be faring best in the search for elusive coins.
A family approached my machine. ‘I’d use another one,’ I warned. I’ve just put £5 in this one and it didn’t print a ticket.’
They nodded and went away to a different machine while I scurried over to my car to find a pen and paper then back to the wretched machine to get its number and the correct time of day.
By the time I got back to it, there was a man already putting coins into my machine. Before I could warn him he’d slipped in the last coin and pressed the green button. The machine whirred instantly into life printing out his ticket.
It was then I noticed the sign above the machine. The price wasn’t £5; it had been changed to £5.50!
The machine was registering that it was waiting for the full amount to be paid into it again; my £5 had been lost.
I would have to find change for a ten pound note before I could get a ticket.
In the distance the London train was pulling into the station. Defeated I returned to my car, put away the paper and pen, and drove slowly home.
The demo would be one short.
I wondered how many others try to get to demos and are thwarted by one thing or another.

As my car was momentarily halted by busy traffic outside an empty Chinese takeaway I seized the moment, grabbed my Tibetan flag and shouted, ‘Free Tibet. Free Tibet.’
It was not quite the Chinese Embassy, Trafalgar Square or Downing Street but it would have to do.
I had been on a demo!