A bit of a whinge...

Okay so maybe the slightly improved weather isn’t a fluke!! The snow seems to have come to an end (touch wood – don’t wanna jinx it), but it’s still hellishly cold (at least I think so)… I thought I could guts it out till it gets much warmer, but I finally relented and bought more kerosene (toyu) last night! WORSE, it’s been raining… now most people know that I hate the rain (well, I hate it when I have to go out into it! I like it when I’m cosy at home, under the covers with a book or a bloke) it puts a serious downer on my day and for some reason more things seem to go wrong when it’s raining!! Take yesterday for example – I had a miscommunication with my visit school (who are already upset with me for being sick a couple of weeks ago… sighhhh) and thought they wanted me there in the pm instead of the am. So I was heading out to my base school until I had to leave for my visit school, when I got a call from my supervisor at said visit school asking me where I was! Man, I felt SO guilty… I thought I’d misunderstood and couldn’t apologise enough (I mean I already felt bad because of the flu thing! Anyway it turns out this particular misunderstanding wasn’t my fault – but that’s another story). So I rushed to the station and bought a ticket! But I’d punched the WRONG frigging button (I didn’t realise this until I was on the train) and instead of paying Y400, I’d paid Y820, for a one way ticket to Higashi Sanjo!!

Naturally I thought this problem could be solved at H Sanjo station, they’d see that I’d bought the ticket in Niitsu, realise that a train ticket from Niitsu to H Sanjo costs only Y400 and reimburse the extra Y420 (for those of you back home Y420 is btwn R22-25! So by buying a Y820 ticket to H Sanjo from Niitsu I’d essentially paid more than R50 for a 30 minute train trip) – I mean they have these fare adjustment machines everywhere, so if you pay too little, you can quite painlessly pay the extra amount you owe! It naturally follows they would be EQUALLY accommodating (in the spirit of fairness) if you happened to pay too MUCH for a bloody ticket! So I head to the nearest window to speak to the station master, I show him my ticket, point to the kanji for Niitsu, I see him grasp the realisation that I’d paid too much… I wait for my money… nothing! The dude just keeps talking, going on and on about Niitsu and Higashi Sanjo and what not! So I frown and point to the ticket again and try in my PATHETIC (I HATE BEING SUCH A SLOW LEARNER – WHY CAN I NOT HAVE A NATURAL AFFINITY FOR LANGUAGES!?) Japanese, to ask him very politely, if he can please give my money back… nothing!! So eventually I said in English “Look, I paid too much! Now can you please just give me my Y420 back?” and HE said (in perfect English, by the way); “No… no money back. No!” Aaaaaaarghhhhhh!!!

I mean AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

I tell you I got blindingly furious!! I really, really LOST MY TEMPER (and it does take a lot for me to lose my temper!), afterwards I tried to figure out how I got from the station to the taxi rank… cos it was a blank! I tried to remember if there was any blood at the scene. Did I, or did I not, commit murder?! I now know what temporary insanity must feel like! I honestly could not remember what I'd said!! I knew that it couldn’t have been very polite… only after I’d arrived at school and calmed down, did I remember what I said!! I must admit, it wasn’t half as bad as I’d expected! It was something along the line of: “What?! WHAT?!! OH! MY! GOD!!!” and then I simply walked away!! Phew… that bloke was SO lucky I wasn’t pre-menstrual, things may have turned out a lot differently if that had been the case!

I felt bloody-minded all day yesterday… best bit of my day was playing Scrabble with my English Club students!! We had a great time!
Later I walked back to the station and glared at the station master on my way onto the platform, to show him I was still pissed off by such a blatant miscarriage of justice! Then I sat there for nearly half an hour waiting for another flipping train (which was round about the time I sent a whole lot of people an email telling them how much I’d hated the day! Sorry guys!)…

Never mind, the day wasn’t a total wash out, I rallied the Niitsu troops (okay, in all honesty, I called Simone and SHE rallied the troops) and we had curry at Nile! Nice way to unwind!

Footnote: Improved weather, my BUTT! It started snowing at about 4pm!! Damn it!