abominable miko, the good samaritan

this morning, i was supposed to accompany a student at the kiwanis festival at yonge and st. clair. i decided to take the ttc in to avoid rush hour and parking dilemmas.

i had to be there at 9am, so i woke up at 6:45am. i don't usually have to be up at a certain time; if i sleep in, it's just a nice start to my day and doesn't result in chaotic panic since i don't usually start work until noon. so i was paranoid i was going to sleep in or miss the alarm. i woke up every hour starting at 1:30am. at least i didn't sleep in or miss the alarm.

i got ready and was out the door by 7:30am. i didn't have to be at yonge and st. clair until 9am, so i had given my plenty of time, which i tend to do.

i got to the subway station and found a plethora of parking spaces since it was still pretty early. i got my credit card to pay for a ticket for the lot i was in. the machine wouldn't take it and kept telling me the transaction was finished when there was clearly no transacting happening. there was a woman also wanting to get a ticket, so she offered to use her credit card. the machine promptly ate her credit card. she started to panic (she actually stamped her foot, it was cute since she was probably 45 years old) and saying things like "oh shoot!" and "darn! WHAT am i going to do?" - when i type it now, it doesn't seem like she was very upset but she was visibly agitated. she explained to me that she had an important appointment at the hospital downtown, hence her angst. i told her to call her credit card company and cancel the card, and that i would go to another machine to buy both of us parking passes. she didn't even really hear me because she was still panicking. after 3 credit cards at the other machine (and praying that the machine wouldn't abduct my cards), i finally got the tickets needed. i brought the panicking lady her parking pass and she thanked me profusely, wanting my phone number so she could arrange to pay me back. i told her not to worry about it. it's nice to receive random acts of kindness from strangers.

did i mention it was snowing huge fluffy snowflakes? the whole process took at least 20 minutes, so by the time it was done, my jacket and head both were covered with a thick layer of snow. my hair was actually soaking wet as i got on the subway and people were staring at me. i was trying discreetly to comb through my hair with my fingers while pulling out chunks of ice and snow.

i ended up making it with 5 minutes to spare (did i MENTION that i gave myself 1 hour and 30 minutes to get somewhere that should only take 30 minutes?!) only to find out that the student i was accompanying was not there yet. she ended up being almost an hour late and barely made it in time to compete.

the moral of the story? no matter what the credit counsellors say, it's a good idea to have 3 credit cards. oh, and it's normal and recommended to give yourself triple the time that you think you need to get somewhere.