Thursday, October 28, 2010

Random Angle - Pennies and Sense

Tonight I found myself with no way home.

I take the red line on the El trains. A 45 minute ride that would take about a day and a half to walk, it seems. After work I decided to take my time coming home; it was too late to make it home and see michael before he went off to his show, and I thought it would be good to spend a bit of time roaming flashy downtown before spending my evening at home finishing up Shopgirl (the Steve Martin book).

So after I had finished my Macy's window shopping and and people watching I decided to head home. But once I got down to the train, I realized that I needed to refill my card.

Now that I am at this point, I must say that usually I think ahead a tiny bit more than this. I realize when I need to refill my card and what that entails (namely, money). But today I, for some reason, didn't think to bring anything to refill my card with. I am very particular about not putting money on my credit cards, so I don't bring them. And I didn't happen to have any other card or check with me.

I think what is also interesting is I happened to realize this at 7, exactly the time that Michael leaves for his show.

So I thought a bit, walked around thinking a bit more and made a mental list of people who would be willing to spend their evening coming downtown to give me two bucks. Finally I found a little coin purse in my bag, so I counted out my coins and went down to the train card machine again to see how much was left on my card.

I'll just say it's a good thing that 1) my card wasn't completely empty and 2) the card machine takes pennies.

No comments: