Fw: At JFK Airport
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike.
We landed at JFK ahead of schedule and took the shuttle bus to Grand Central Station. That way we could see everything as we travelled into the city. The Ticket guy sold us two $13 dollar tickets and we got on. We were followed by an obnoxious Oxford Don type with his blue checked Land shirt and his comfy corduroys but worse was his Australian girlfriend who spoke with such a high pitched whine it sounded as if she had been gargling on nail varnish remover. They bitched the whole time. They bitched at the driver for not leaving when they were ready and then they bitched at him because the bus was too hot!
At each terminal we picked people up and a different ticket dude would come onboard and sell tickets to the new passengers. At terminal one the driver announced that every one had to have their tickets ready, because the guy that collects them would come on.
A rather hysterical American woman student announced that the ticket dude hadn't given her a ticket. The long suffering driver, a large African American, who was not even driving the bus, he was training a woman to drive the route, looked towards heaven with a flash of white. He was the Refrigerator. "So you paid thirteen dollars and you didn't get a ticket?" he asked, his tone a pale shadow of sincerity.
"I dunno," she says, vacantly. "You're the professionals." She was a world traveller; she was playing the dumb card like a professional.
There was a long hiatus while the driver tried to establish which terminal she had got on at. "Was it terminal four?" he asked.
She wasn't sure. I guess she hadn’t realised that they were numbered from eight to one.
It was terminal four. I remembered she was the only person to get on. I kept quiet. I wasn't prepared to volunteer that information. After all, I was nearly in New York. The driver was no man to be taken for a ride. If the ticket dude had scammed this sucker, he wasn't taking the $13 out his pocket.
A long ten minutes went past while both the ticket collecting dude and the driver, tried to phone the terminal four ticket dude and see if he had a ticket. Through the huge windscreen of the bus I could see, from the expression on the Refrigerator’s face, that the ticket dude at terminal four was hanging on to the big scam of thirteen dollars.
Meanwhile on board the bus, Mr University Challenged, reading Anger For Dummies, starts FREAKING OUT BIG STYLE, followed by his similarly challenge chum, the Australian peace envoy. "They rip you eff," she told the by now quiet Miss American fool student, who was obviously planning to sit tight and let events take their course. "They ripped ez eff in Lendin," she added in a tone so smug you could have spread in on thick slice of bread. Her dissertation on World Rip Offs I Have Known complete, she and Mr University challenged leapt off the bus and started to give the driver and the ticket collecting dude a piece of their minds. If it had been a piece larger than a teaspoonful and containing all the brain cells required to factor up 1 and 1, the two of them would have been struggling.
Two seats back from me, a rather dignified elderly New Yorker-type gentleman, complete with yes, you guessed it Tweed sports jacket sans leather elbow patches and a pointed ivy league beard made an observation, to the great amusement of the majority of the passengers.
"A give that guy all of eight minutes in New York," he said in a long Manhattan drawl.
Outside, Mr University Challenge was getting nowhere with the Refrigerator. He and Sheila returned to the bus.
"Look, we reckon if we all chip in with a dollar each we can sort this out and get on our way," he told the gathered throng.
Why doesn't the stupid student pay a second time? I thought but kept my opinions to myself.
Behind me I could hear bills rustling. University Challenged managed to avoid asking me for a dollar or I might have bit him, but he conned the others out of the cash. Triumphantly seizing defeat from the jaws of victory he sallied out to the Refrigerator and stumped up the cash.
We could at last, head to New York.
We landed at JFK ahead of schedule and took the shuttle bus to Grand Central Station. That way we could see everything as we travelled into the city. The Ticket guy sold us two $13 dollar tickets and we got on. We were followed by an obnoxious Oxford Don type with his blue checked Land shirt and his comfy corduroys but worse was his Australian girlfriend who spoke with such a high pitched whine it sounded as if she had been gargling on nail varnish remover. They bitched the whole time. They bitched at the driver for not leaving when they were ready and then they bitched at him because the bus was too hot!
At each terminal we picked people up and a different ticket dude would come onboard and sell tickets to the new passengers. At terminal one the driver announced that every one had to have their tickets ready, because the guy that collects them would come on.
A rather hysterical American woman student announced that the ticket dude hadn't given her a ticket. The long suffering driver, a large African American, who was not even driving the bus, he was training a woman to drive the route, looked towards heaven with a flash of white. He was the Refrigerator. "So you paid thirteen dollars and you didn't get a ticket?" he asked, his tone a pale shadow of sincerity.
"I dunno," she says, vacantly. "You're the professionals." She was a world traveller; she was playing the dumb card like a professional.
There was a long hiatus while the driver tried to establish which terminal she had got on at. "Was it terminal four?" he asked.
She wasn't sure. I guess she hadn’t realised that they were numbered from eight to one.
It was terminal four. I remembered she was the only person to get on. I kept quiet. I wasn't prepared to volunteer that information. After all, I was nearly in New York. The driver was no man to be taken for a ride. If the ticket dude had scammed this sucker, he wasn't taking the $13 out his pocket.
A long ten minutes went past while both the ticket collecting dude and the driver, tried to phone the terminal four ticket dude and see if he had a ticket. Through the huge windscreen of the bus I could see, from the expression on the Refrigerator’s face, that the ticket dude at terminal four was hanging on to the big scam of thirteen dollars.
Meanwhile on board the bus, Mr University Challenged, reading Anger For Dummies, starts FREAKING OUT BIG STYLE, followed by his similarly challenge chum, the Australian peace envoy. "They rip you eff," she told the by now quiet Miss American fool student, who was obviously planning to sit tight and let events take their course. "They ripped ez eff in Lendin," she added in a tone so smug you could have spread in on thick slice of bread. Her dissertation on World Rip Offs I Have Known complete, she and Mr University challenged leapt off the bus and started to give the driver and the ticket collecting dude a piece of their minds. If it had been a piece larger than a teaspoonful and containing all the brain cells required to factor up 1 and 1, the two of them would have been struggling.
Two seats back from me, a rather dignified elderly New Yorker-type gentleman, complete with yes, you guessed it Tweed sports jacket sans leather elbow patches and a pointed ivy league beard made an observation, to the great amusement of the majority of the passengers.
"A give that guy all of eight minutes in New York," he said in a long Manhattan drawl.
Outside, Mr University Challenge was getting nowhere with the Refrigerator. He and Sheila returned to the bus.
"Look, we reckon if we all chip in with a dollar each we can sort this out and get on our way," he told the gathered throng.
Why doesn't the stupid student pay a second time? I thought but kept my opinions to myself.
Behind me I could hear bills rustling. University Challenged managed to avoid asking me for a dollar or I might have bit him, but he conned the others out of the cash. Triumphantly seizing defeat from the jaws of victory he sallied out to the Refrigerator and stumped up the cash.
We could at last, head to New York.
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