Zulu Incomplete

Where is it? Where could it be?! I thought to myself as I frantically rustled through each and every single one of my pockets and carefully examined it’s contents. It didn’t turn up, not even after turning them inside out. What a time to be wearing cargo pants.

The day before I had gone to the bus station in Madrid to buy a ticket for the following days night bus to Malaga and I still had it that morning when I stuffed it my jacket pocket along with my camera and iPod. And now, while the camera and iPod where still in the pocket, the ticket was nowhere to be found. It must of fallen out of my pocket at some point while I was taking the camera out to take a picture, somewhere in central madrid, sometime within the previous 12 hours. There wasn’t realistically any hope of finding it, it was only a little more than an hour until the bus left.

So I went back to the ticket window and told the clerk there that I had lost my ticket and asked if there was anything that could be done. He said not really.

I got the visa card and he asked me if I knew what seat my old ticket was. I thought, Oh great … this bus is going to be full. My thoughts must have become audible because he assured me that there were still seats left. I told him I thought it was maybe number 18, he told me definitely not.

He asked me where I bought the ticket, I said right in very same ticket window in which were talking. He asked me when I bought the ticket, I said  the day previous in the afternoon. He asked me if I had bought it from him, I told him I sure didn’t recognize him.

I got out my credit card and he got out a hand written ticket. He gave me the newly created ticket and said I didn’t owe him anything.

I couldn’t believe it. I was certain I was going to have to pay twice (which still only amounts to half what a train ticket would cost) and he was letting me on the bus with not much more than my word! Amazing! I did not expect so much grace from a bus station ticket clerk at eleven pm on a Saturday night.

At any rate, I believe there is a lesson here to be learned. My advice to myself is that in the future, I should use my little pocket camera to make a quick and disposable copy important papers, such as bus tickets, in case I once again find my pockets quite hole-y.

Ultimately though, I just want to thank Daibus for being helpful and not making me pay for my seat twice. That really made my day.