A London Underground season ticket for “the tube” saved my life once. That is, of course, only how I felt on the busiest day of my life but probably isn’t the reality of the situation. I tend to over-exaggerate. Nonetheless, when I had lost my cheap London Underground gold card for the fifth time, I felt I was sure to be late for every single engagement that I had planned on that bustling Monday. I had to be at work, then I had to go to another office and pick up plans for our home building dreams, then I had to pick up dinner, and then I had to pick up my children from school. Of course, it probably wasn’t all in that exact order but I tend to forget traumatic experiences and try to block them out from my memory.

I remember, however, sitting on the tube watching the zones fly by in my mind’s eye. I was trying to remember if I was to get off at zone 1 or zone 2. Before I knew what or where I was going, zone 3 and zone 4 had passed already and I was well on my way to zone 5 and picking up speed towards zone 6. In the back of my mind I knew that my London Underground gold card was probably going to be enough to cover my day’s travels on the tube so I fumbled it out of my pocket when the man came to check the tickets. Of course, I thought I fumbled it out of my pocket and instead I presented the young ticket-checker with a rather tattered version of my son’s picture. He stood there impatiently while I came to the inevitable conclusion that I had, indeed, misplaced my ticket somewhere around zone 3 or zone 4.

Oh, the madness! I hopped off, or rather was ushered firmly off, the tube and headed for the nearest ticket booth on a mission to maintain my integrity as a frequent London Underground traveller. I spoke like I knew what I was talking about and instead found myself purchasing, for quite a lot of money actually, a London Underground season ticket that was about the cost of several LUL season tickets in my mind.

Sure, maybe that was another over-exaggeration, but the reality was that once again I had come up with a lot more than I bargained for that particular Monday. It was too late to matter and I got back on the train somewhere around zone 5 or zone 6 with my new season tickets to the tube and tried to continue through the day with a decent idea of where I was going, what I was doing, and who I was. It, naturally, wasn’t going to be easy.