The Journey
( published 18th March 2002 )
www.alexandrino.com

Hi All,

MONDAY: Bad News, Good News! Bad News, this morning mail today is really long, good news, it will probably be the only one until Friday ( shit, I meant to say it the other way around ), as I will be traveling again. So I have subdivided it into a Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday section, so you can read the first part today, the second one tomorrow etc...Those who are only here for the jokes, go straight down to it. The others have again a good laugh at my expense...Ciaoooooooo

TUESDAY: British Rail have started implementing gates in their stations, so people cannot travel anymore without ticket. That is annoying, because I was a big amateur of only paying occasionally. Waaaoooww, Alex is not paying his ticket...well, there is a reason to it. First of all my mountain bike, one of the only "material goods" I could salvage from my former marriage ( the other stuff has been equally divided, and donated totally to my ex-wife ) was stolen from the platform at Chislehurst station. The British Rail employee saw it, but didn't do anything. Of course it hadn't been his responsibility. Second my car standing on British Rail paying parking had been broken into 4 times ( half of eight, yes ) in less than 2 years. Again, no responsibility from British Rail, despite cameras everywhere.

So I took my small revenge by not paying for some of my journeys to work...The risk was of course the controllers that sometimes checked if you had a ticket or not. But then again the fine was £10.00, my ticket cost £6.50 ( what a rip off! ), so my odds were pretty good. I never got caught, but one day...

WEDNESDAY: One day, Karine and I entered the 6.15pm London Bridge-Chislehurst direction "casa". That day we honestly had forgotten to buy our tickets ( the habit probably ). We were eager to come home after a long long day. Surprise, we saw controllers at Elmstead Woods station, and knew that another squad of British Rail gentlemen would be waiting at Chislehurst station. And so it was. But, tatatataaaaaaaa, Alex had again one of his splendid ideas ( Karine still hates me for it ). We stayed on the train, and got off at the following station, Petts Wood, empty of "bad boys". We bought 2 one way tickets Petts Wood-Chislehurst, and waited for a London train to arrive. Here it came, what a feeling to stand in the train, thinking of how clever I was, harharhar...until we heard the driver's voice: "Welcome to this 6.50 Sevenoaks-London service. Please note this train is now fast to London Bridge." Fast,...fast? Fast as in "no stops anymore until London?" Boohoooohoooooo!!!

THURSDAY: Just the time to waive the controllers in Chislehurst, as our train sped by without braking...25 minutes later, we arrived at London Bridge...where we had to pay the difference for our Petts Wood-London ticket first ( we only had a Petts Wood-Chislehurst, remember? ), then we had to buy a ticket London-Chislehurst, and after a 2 1/2 hours journey we finally arrived at home. Is being a cheat really worth it?

Have a nice week ahead!
Alex Perience


True Story: La Grange, GA

Attorney Antonio Mendoza was released from a trauma center after having a cell phone removed from his rectum.

"My dog drags the thing all over the house," he said later. "He must have dragged it into the shower. I slipped on the tile, tripped against the dog and sat down right on the thing".

The extraction took more than three hours due to the fact that the cover to Mr Mendoza's phone had opened during insertion.

"He was a real trouper during the entire episode," said Dr Dennis Crobe. "Tony just cracked jokes and really seemed to be enjoying himself. Three times during the extraction his phone rang and each time, he made jokes about it that just had us rolling on the floor. By the time we finished, we really did expect to find an answering machine in there".