off the rails

Got some post from South West Trains this morning. Half expected it to be a demand for monies owed, having completed a Surrey hat trick of post-drinks fare-dodges last night by waking up in Guildford. On the last train. This time the Yahoo! Christmas party was to blame (although the drinks before going there might have had something to do with it too). So there I was at 0150 or so, no trains back to London until 0353. Got some money out to get a cab and discovered there were 2 other guys in the same boat, so we agreed to share (they both needed Kingston; result).

Unfortunately while at the ATM I'd discovered that my travelcard was missing from my wallet. I gave a fairly thorough check to make sure it wasn't just not-on-top, but didn't find it. It runs out on January 7th so it's not the greatest hardship in the world, I'd only have lost 3 weeks or so worth. Mind you that's 90-odd quid. Anyway. I wanted it back. The cab was turning up in 5 minutes and some very kind and accomodating SWT staff let me back on the locked-up train to look for it. 'course I had no fucking idea what carriage I'd been in or anything. During my search the fella got called on his walkie-talkie saying the other two were about to fuck off in that cab unless I made it back sharpish, so I admitted defeat and came home. Dunno how much it was going to cost but I shoved 20 quid in one of my fellow disgraces faces as they dropped me off, about 100 yards from my door.

My travelcard was in my wallet. Just not on top.