A True Story For Once

Okay, I have just decided to write this up as it happened to me and a group of friends on Monday and frankly, it was hilarious at the time and I am sure it will be hilarious when I have written it up. It is also one of the only things I have chucked on here that actually happened to me.

My friends and I had all just left the Banksy exhibition in Bristol. A really good day out and highly recommended, if you are wondering. The queue wasn't too bad, either.

Now, we had dinner and then headed off to the car park. This is where the fun begins. the fee came to £6. We paid the ticket after a few of us didn't have enough coins to pay their share. Anyway, it was paid, we'd had a good day now let's head home.

One of my friends, let's call him friend 1, grabs the ticket. Note, this is not the driver of the car. The driver of the car wants the ticket. He doesn't really need it at that stage as we are nowhere near the car at that time. but he wants it. He tells this to friend 1. Friend 2 and I meanwhile, just watch the ensuing rubbish jokey argument between them.

This is where it gets ridiculous. The driver gives up on asking for the ticket so presses the button for the lift. Friend 1, bored of holding the ticket since the driver now doesn't care for it, decides to throw the card at his back. He throws the card in the classic way of throwing cards so it flies seamlessly through the air. At just this moment the lift doors open for us to step in. The ticket misses the driver's back and land right on the edge of the gap between floor and lift.

It then flips over and plummets down this gap. Never to be seen again.

We all stare at each other. this wasn't in the plan. So we get the thrower of the ticket, Friend 1, to go to the machine and ask for help. He says we have lost our ticket and we are all told to walk down to the ticket office on Floor A. So we trudge downstairs, in a state of shock at the events we have just witnessed. At the same time laughing at such a ridiculous turn of events.

We reach the ticket office. Myself and friend 2 stand back from the discussion between driver, friend 1 and the two ticket officers. We are then called over by friend 1. We have been given ulitmatum. the ticket man tells us that we can either pay the £18 fine as is normal, or sing jingle bells as a quartet to get out. It's a no brainer.

The four of us quickly run through the lyrics of jingle bells together as we await our impromptu first and most likely, last, performance as a quartet. Meanwhile, one ticket man is moving the CCTV cameras onto us and calling up to his mate on another floor to watch the screen. We are motioned by the other ticket man to sing the song. We sing.

The two ticket men, evil people that they are, record this display and have the cheek to laugh as we sing our hearts out for our escape. After the one verse that everybody knows, we are told that we are free to go and he'll let us out as we drive down. Embarrassed we return to the car, located on floor K.

As we approach the barrier, we blast out a Sufjan Stevens version of Jingle Bells from my iPod, much to the delight of one of the ticket men, who lets us out.

I'll sum this up in a sentence. My friends and I had to sing jingle bells to two ticket men at the ticket office, to get out of a car park in Bristol, in order to get home, after one of our number threw the ticket down the lift shaft.

What a day.