Cruel Trick

The other night I made some lady get on the wrong train.

Well, I didn't *make* her. And anyway, that's what you get for relying on a stranger to navigate your trip through Berlin at 1 am.

I've told you before that on weekdays öffentliches Verkehrsmittel (that's public transportation to you Yanks) goes completely off the rails after midnight.

By that I mean trains between points A and Z just suddenly stop at point E and the conductor tells you to get off. Then you have to wait 10 minutes for another train to come along and take you to point F, at which time the conductor tells you to get off again.

You know, German's not the most pleasant language, but I have to admit that "Bitte alle aussteigen" sounds a lot more polite than "Everyone please get off."

Anyway, so that's what happened. And there I was standing on the platform in the cold. That's when some lady asked me, in English, which train went to point A.

I told her I didn't know. Then I told her that the train I had just gotten off of had come from point A, so it probably wasn't that one.

Unfortunately, she believed me.

She went and got on the other train.

No sooner had she done so than the doors closed and the train she was on started going in the wrong direction.

Then the train I had warned her away from, my old train, closed its doors and reversed its course, heading backwards toward point A.

The funny thing was, the wrong train that I made the lady get on? That's the train *I* wanted to be on. I had to take a series of buses home.