Digital Underground - uXu - Underground eXperts United #uxu-053

### ### ### ### ### #### ### ### ### #### ### ### ##### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ##### ### ### ########## ### ### ########## ### ### ### ### Underground eXperts United Presents... ####### ## ## ####### # # ####### ####### ####### ## ## ## ## ##### ## ## ## ## #### ## ## #### # # ## ## ####### ##### ## ## ## ## ##### ## ## ## ## ## ## ####### ####### # # ####### ####### ####### [ Friday The 17th ] [ By The Chief ] ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ###### ###### ###### ##### ###### ## ## #### ###### TH ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## # # # ## ## #### ###### ## ## ## ###### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ###### ##### ## ## ## THE #### ## For some, it's Friday the 13th. For others, it's some other day. You all know what I'm talking about, right? Well, when THAT day crawls upon you, you're never prepared. You might prepare for years, but when the day comes, it is the day you never suspected. My "day" is Friday the 17th. Let me tell you what happened last time it was that day (namely January the 17th) to me and a friend of mine. BACKGROUND I'm currently doing my military service in a town far away from my hometown, and when going home on vacations, holidays and other miscellaneous times, I have to take (in order) a BUS, SUBWAY, TRAIN, BOAT and last a CAR to get to my house. This makes for a great story right? True. Sad but true. Let's start this special friday then.. THE BUS The bus leaves the base at 17:00. We're finished with the training at 16:15. This leaves us with 45 minutes to take a shower, pack, clean, eat dinner, and go (read: run) to the bus. No sweat. If you don't make mistakes that is. At 16.20 we were off to clean the barrack. Quickly, quickly now. The clock on the wall showed 16.35 when we were ready for inspection. Amazingly enough, everything looked ok to the captain, and as he went out through the doors, I hit the showers. At 16.50 I was packed 'n ready to eat dinner, so me and a friend of mine, let's call him Eric, went over to the dining-hall. WHAT A QUEUE! It went out in the street even! We decided not to have dinner (what a surprise eh?), but to wait and eat when we reached Stockholm at about 19:15 with the bus. Said and done, we were off to the bus. The second not-so-surprising fact was that the bus was full. They had just ordered another one that would "be here in about 5 minutes, so don't go away, or you'll miss it.". 30 minutes later the bus arrived. ARRIVED AT STOCKHOLM 19:50 As you can see, we were 35 minutes late, so we ran to the nearest Pizza Hut (after taking the subway to the train central to send our luggage to the boat) and grabbed a Large 'Spicey N Hot' to share. During the dinner, a couple sitting next to us started to act strangely walking around the restaurant, with luggage, sleeping-bags and stuff like that. When they'd finished eating. The woman took the luggage, the sleeping-bags and their clothes and went out the door. The man just sat there at the table. After about five minutes, he stood up and tried to run to the exit. (No, they hadn't paid). A waitress caught him, and dragged him back to the table. "Ok, Ok! I'll pay!" he said, and when the waitress had gone to get their bill, he ran upstairs to the toilets and locked the door. The manager called the police, and they arrived (two squad cars and a van) with flashing blue lights (which they didn't turn off). After about 30 minutes of "talking with the criminal" he came out, and they took him downtown. We actually had time for a couple of beers too, before it was time for us to go to the train. THE TRAIN The train were to leave the station at 21:39, so we ran to the right track, and jumped on the train five minutes ahead of time. Talk about making it! 5 Minutes! That wasn't bad. Suddenly the train started to move, 4 minutes before schedule. We just sat back, relaxing and thinking that they probably just made up for some delay or something. It wasn't until we noticed some strange stations the train stopped at, we started to question if we were really on the right train. So, we asked a girl sitting behind us. "I don't know if it's the train to the boat. I'm only going half-way this line, and this train goes my way. Sorry.". We decided that one of us should jump off at the next station and ask the driver if it was the RIGHT train. At Huddinge Station I jumped off ready to start running to the driver. The doors opened and.... When I crawled back up on my feet again, blood streamed out from a hole in the left leg of my jeans, my hands were covered with blood and gravel. Well, I didn't let that stop me, though my friend also jumped off the train and helped me. The driver said "No, you took the wrong train. You have to go back to the central and take the next train to the boat." To check when the next train would leave, we had to go to the ticket counter and ask. Of course the old crow behind the counter was Finnish, and didn't speak Swedish very well. We tried to get through to her for 15 minutes (the queue behind us grew and soon started to shout and scream too). Finally, I grabbed her train- book and went out to check for myself. That's when my watch died. It just didn't work. As if that wasn't all, the last train to the boat had left the central-station ten minutes ago and we had missed it. BUS THEN? We ran (I walked with a straight, bleeding leg, my friend ran) to the bus central to see if there were any busses going to the boat. "Sorry, you just missed the last one. It left fifteen minutes ago.." What about Taxi then?, we asked. "Well, it'll cost you about $175.00 if you want to get there in time for the boat." TAXI We ran (once again, I walked) outside to grab the nearest taxi. What did you expect? If we didn't make it to the boat, we would be stranded, with no weekend to spend with girlfriends and so on.. Jumped into the nearest taxi, and shouted "TAKE US TO THE BOAT AS FAST AS POSSIBLE!". The driver, aged about 25-27 just stepped on the gas, and we screeched out into the traffic. As you might know, there's a lot of "black" taxis out there. People driving to make money, taking "special price just for you" and also criminals who drives these cars, just waiting for some unsuspecting victims to rob and kill on some nearby, small, dark street. This guy looked like one, and we didn't have time to check the car before we jumped into it. He really started by saying "So, how much do you want to pay for this trip, guys?". I just waited for him to make a turn somewhere and pull out a gun, BLAM BLAM, and we're history. But, what the hell, we said "We'll pay $90.00". And the driver just nodded and didn't say a word. We zzwoshed down small roads at a speed of 190km/h (yes, it was a Mercedes) listening to him talk about his 'friends'. One of them apparently was in jail. Not a Swedish, comfortable one, no no, he was doing time (12 years for stealing a safe) in Greece. Then he started to discuss the drug prices these days. Boy, was it expensive these days or what?!. Oh yeah, he got his drivers licence back last week. The cops had taken it for "reckless and drunk driving" three months ago. He went on and on and we started to write our wills. Amazingly enough we arrived at the harbour 10 minutes before the boat would leave, and he charged us $90.00 as well. We didn't believe it first, but when the car drove away, we did. Pretty cool guy really. <grin>. THE BOAT When we opened the door to the cabin we'd got, we couldn't but notice the two other old dodderers who were also to share the cabin. Ok, I cleaned my wounds, and tried to get some sleep. What a joke! One of the oldies snored like a couple of elephants and the other moaned and groaned in his sleep. All night. I'm surprised the sea was calm though, because the last time we went by boat, it was storm. But, we finally arrived at 05:45 in the morning. THE CAR Of course we got the latest model, the fastest, the best equipped car? Hahhahaha. Well, a Renault R5, model 1980-ish. I couldn't drive very well with my leg in the shape it was, but I made it home at least. --- Well, that's what happened that friday. I won't go into what happened when I went to see a couple of doctors (both civilian and military) about my leg, and how they differed in judgement (amazing). So what can we learn from this story? Hell, I don't know. I'm just entertaining those who enjoy having fun at other people's misfortune here. If you want to learn, go read a school-book or something. _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________

← Svenska e-zines (1990-2008)