Greetings, Steemians and Steemettes!

We managed to leave another working week right behind us, godbless. The week has had it's up and downs, with the downs really giving their best to pull and keep me down, yet here I am, still breathing, still standing strong. Today is a special day for the superstitious among us. I know a couple of those in private myself.

And after today, I may just end up becoming one of them.

Tell me how you like these new designs. I really wanted to try something new for a change.

It all started at the beginning

I woke up in the morning as I usually do and took a shower. I was a bit more careful than I usually was because of the mark left by a certain butcher. It went well though and I wasn't in any immediate danger of bleeding out. Things seemed to go well for me!

Noticed that a friend of mine has birthday today, so I went and gave her some congratulations. In doing so, I noticed that today is Friday the 13. I did not think much about it. I am not superstitious about these topics and I actually made an effort out of researching the meaning behind the date and found out that it is, as expected, just man-made rubbish.

A fact I shared with some of my more superstitious friends which they took in with mixed opinions.

But I did not particularly care. Life was good for me, I wasn't surprisingly bleeding out and the weekend wasn't too far away. Getting to work also went smoothly, Every bus and train was just on time and I made it in early without rushing.

And then I had weekend!

I somehow did not feel as relieved about this as I usually would. Probably because I had an appointment with a friend who was in a rough spot. But that went somewhat acceptable as well. I wanted to make my way home afterwards, much later than I usually would have wanted to.

Back at the main train station, I was waiting for a bus. A bus came without me having to suffer from harsh waiting times. With a smile, I noticed that it was a bus that would stop right at my certain favorite grocery store, the one I was talking about just yesterday.

How convenient.

I made a mistake

Let me tell you something about taking a bus or a train in my area. If you go from town to town by train, especially during certain times, there is a good chance that you will have your ticket checked. I have mine checked all the time, so I am cool with that. These poor people are just doing their jobs after all.

If you come around with a bus, you will have your ticket checked by the driver as you step into the bus. They usually just glance over it in a rush. There are usually no controls in a bus because of this and I haven't seen someone doing controls in a bus in years.

Until today.

And I did not care. Why would I? I had my ticket after all. I was able to get around in the area I am living in for 109 Euros a month, which I paid. So when the man came to me, I showed him my ticket readily and with a smile on my face. As I usually do.

In retrospect, I should have just walked. The man looked at my ticket and noticed that apparently something was odd about my ticket.

Some Context

I bought the ticket at a ticket machine for 109 Euro back in the mid of June. The 18. of June, to be precise. No control ever had anything to say against my ticket, no matter how close they looked at it. And a lot of them looked close at them. I may be living in germany and I may be a nice guy, but because I am not looking like a typical german, some people still take that as a reason for controlling me extra thorough.

This guy today did not control me extra thoroughly. And he even felt bad for telling me what he found.

He politely informed me that the impression of my ticket being usable for a month is wrong. The ticket was not active for a full month. It was active until the end of the month it was purchased in.

As I told you earlier, I purchased the ticket on the 18. of June, thinking that it would still be of service until I would just get a new one in the next week. I never knew about this ridiculous rule, but he even showed me a brochure proving his claim.

So what happened then?

No matter how unreasonable the reason, I was cought during that one control that happened once every other blue moon without a valid ticket. And being cought without a valid ticket does cost you dearly. 60 Euros, to be precise. He gave me the option of going to the local information center and see whether I could maybe make a deal there, but he wasn't too positive about it.

Of course that wasn't all.

He then took out another brochure out of his pocket. And this is where I had a very, very hard time not losing it. I described how the ticket I bought apparently works and clearly, it is an unreasonable system clearly meant to trap unknowing people like me into buying it and getting cought empty handed.

The provider of these services knows of this of course. Nobody can create a ridiculously stupid system like this by accident. And of that I was convinced when I took a look at the brochure that the guy handed to me.

Pictures taken by me. The fact that there is no funny line over me providing a source for a picture I use should show you how actually livid I am over this guzbucketing monkey business.

The audacity!

The right page was also added in german of course. And I was actually surprised to see that they dedicated as much space to the english version as they did to the german one, but I will get back to this later.

When I looked at this piece of paper, the rising suspicion that all this has been crafted in a way to make people getting cought like me a strategy they conciously made. But what really made me want to throw a tantrum was the rhetoric they were using there!

Oh hey, you were cought fare dodging, a bummer! Do you even know how bad that is for you? Now we have to go through the trouble of asking money from you for the misfortune we willingly and knowingly brought over you!"

Now that would have been a much more appropriate thing to be stated there. But the worst part was this quote.

You are obviously satisfied with our service otherwise you would not travel with us.

There are so many many things wrong about this sentence, so let us start with the obvious one. No one uses this service by choice. They are the only ones running this kind of business in my city, aside from a couple bus lines that get into our city from others. They are also working together with the "Deutsche Bahn", the train company connecting pretty much all of Germany. There was never a choice in using or not using their goddamn services. I either use them or I have no job.

If I were able to choose, making me want to choose another company wouldn't be above me because these companies manage to mess things up on a regular. Anyone who thinks that Germany is a marvelous place where everything is on point, punctional and functional would be in for a bad awakening.

But the audacity only starts with this ridiculous statement, there is more!

So after they have cought you fare dodging thanks to the situation they crafted and giving you the great news of you either having to pay 60 Euros and/or expect to be prosecuted, they show you how touched they are by you wanting to use their services so bad.

So bad that they are willing to just drop the entire affair if you decide to visit their place within three days to get another ticket or subscription for a ticket. Of course, because the ticket that I would need doesn't last for an actual month, that would mean that this act of benevolence would leave me paying full price for a ticket that I will only be able to use half as much as I should be able to.

But wait, there is more! Remember how I was expressing my surprise about this brochure being in english as well as german?

Brochures like this you usually do not find in Germany. If someone in Germany, especially in my area, hands over a brochure to you, you can expect it to be in German because most people are not able to speak english in here. Which makes the dedication of half this brochures space to the english language quite awkward now, doesn't it?

I take it as solid proof for my claim that the entire thing I went through has been orchestrated with the purpose of artificially creating situations where people like me are being forced into spending money, be it for the penalty fee or being forced into buying another bullshit ticket or an entire subscription.

Now all that would be bad luck enough, but there is yet even more!

Because of my work and this company not having any competition, I do need this ticket. The alternative would be to get a car, which would give me no money or time advantage, on the contrary, it would cause me a lot more inconvenience because parking close to my working place or my home is a hassle.

That being said, I have no other option than to go to their place and try to weasel out a deal to get me out of this situation. But there is one catch:

I don't even have the money.

Having started in my new job just a month ago, my first payment is still due and I won't receive it until the mid of next week. According to the brochure, I only have a three day window to make use of their oh, so gracious offer. And with me just having started working at that place, I really don't want to make demands about getting to work later, especially after me already having had to do so thanks to the butcher carving me up like a pig just two weeks ago.

There will also be a lot of people on vacation this next week, so that will be a problem as well.

So where did my lack of proper superstition towards Friday the 13. lead me?

I am now stuck in a mediocre dilemma that may or may not cost me money I don't have and may end up causing trouble for me regarding my working life. Good grief. I should have just did what everyone else more reasonable than me was doing and calling in sick from work and stay at home.

What would have been the worst thing that could have happened that way? Sudden meteor strike right on my bedroom? Good grief....

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Tell me how you like these new designs. Wanted to try something new for a change.