revenge of the public transportation

We’ve had a whole unit in conversation practice class on transportation. The first day of the unit, we spent a good amount of time discussing the relative plusses and minuses of public and private transportation, and which type (as a whole) we prefer.

Now, I am through and through a child of the suburbs, and we just don’t do public transportation. Even if we did, I might still prefer private. I have many reasons for this, and I made them clear. I don’t like the way public transport smells; I’m not a huge fan of being surrounded by strangers at the times of day when I’m most tired; I really don’t want to constantly watch the zippers of my coat pockets to make sure that nobody’s hand has found its way inside.

I think that Public Transport heard me whining. It said to Itself, “We will make Katie pay. No—better still, we will pay her. Because you know, she already pays us regularly.” I have seen such maniacal yet devious planning in the minds of very few entities throughout my life as I have in that of Public Transport (hi Andrew).

So Saturday, after a lovely (gross, rainy, cold) day of romping about the city seeing some of the достопримечательности (tourist sights), my tutor and I planned to go to this traveling exhibit on the Romanov dynasty (so, basically, the greater part of the history of imperial Russia). That was the plan. This is what happened.

• 6:40pm: arrive at metro Nevsky Prospect. Walk through to the green line. Ride two stops while listening to Schnittke. Epic.
• 7:00pm: walk from metro to nearby Subway, where tutor and her friend have been eating.
• 7:10pm: arrive at bus stop where we will wait for a marshrutka to take us to Lenekspo, where the exhibit is.
• 7:15pm: get on marshrutka. Almost get killed by un-announced-ly closing doors. Pay fare.
• 7:30pm: arrive at Lenekspo.
• 7:35pm: arrive at exhibit. Am turned away because the place closes in 90 minutes and the line is too long to add anybody else. Am secretly glad because my feet hurt.
• 7:40pm: arrive at new bus stop.
• 7:50pm: get on trolleybus that looks right. Pay fare.

Now the rest of the story doesn’t really matter, because it only involves more public transportation misinformation (you mean you aren’t running your whole route tonight? awesome) and more metro. This, the trolleybus, is the part where it gets interesting.

I didn’t have exact change for the trolleybus (25 rubles). I gave the conductor a 50 ruble bill, expecting him to hand me somebody else’s recently-paid fare, which would make sense. There are a lot of different ways you can easily make 25 rubles, from a 20-ruble bill and a 5 coin, or two 10 coins and a 5, etc.

No.

That would be way too simple. Way too accommodating.

Instead, the conductor reached into his pocket and pulled out a stack of coins like I hadn’t seen since I repaid a $2 debt to my dad with 195 pennies and a nickel (true story). I, astounded, accepted the pile and went back to my seat. I decided to believe that it was 25ish rubles. There were too many coins for it to be otherwise.

Later I counted. It came to 29 rubles, mostly in 1-ruble and 50-kopeck coins, with a few 2s thrown in (100 kopecks = 1 ruble). So, this is equivalent to me paying for a $1 item with a $2 bill and being repaid with 25 nickels. Yes, I came out 25 cents richer for it, but isn’t it a little inconvenient? And what exactly am I supposed to do with all of those nickels? Most people don’t like you to buy things in their stores with nickels.

Maybe I’ll buy my next trolleybus ride with it.