The final straw...

I reached my breaking point.

It had been 2 weeks of unrelenting snow here in Ireland and without a car, roads too icy for buses, and living in the country, I had gotten cabin-fever. Now mind you, I did enjoy watching 5 years of Grey's Anatomy Seasons for two weeks, but I didn't come to Ireland to watch Izzy see dead people. So I booked a train out of Kildare and off to Kilkenny.

My train is to leave Kildare at 11:43am and Emma said that she could give me a ride. Although, she gets tied up at work faxing a million dollar fax and runs late picking me up.

As we rock up to the train station, there is a train there already. AH! It's 11:40. I supposedly have 3 minutes. and apparently, trains are never on time in Ireland.

I jump out of the car and run up onto the platform. People are hustling on and off the train and I see the 'flag man.' (This is my name for the guy who makes sure everyone is on or off and lets the train conductor know its ok to leave.) I run down the platform and run up to the guy saying, "I need to get my paper ticket because I bought it online!"

He calmly tells me to go 'stand inside the building.' I run inside but no one is there. So I yell for someone, "Hello! Hello!" No answer. I go back out to the platform and the guy waves me back inside.

The flag man then comes in and asks for my ticket number. He, slow-as-molasses, punches in my number and out of the corner of my eye, I see the train leave. (I'm thinking to myself, 'Well, good thing that wasn't my train because it just left. It must be going somewhere else." )

Then the guys says to me. "Oh. You're going to Kilkenny." And I respond, "Yes, I already know that."

His response... "Well you just missed your train then."

"WHHAT!?" -me

"That was your train. You'll have to catch the next one in 5 hours."
My jaw hits the floor. I respond in a half angry/half about to cry quavering voice, "YOU LET MY TRAIN GO?! WHY would you send me to stand in here by myself , while you told my train to drive off?"

And he simply says, "Next one 4:45. You know, you could have just gotten on the train."

I look at him again, still with a look of anger and disbelief. " So holding back all swear words I look at him and tell him that "He's silly!"

Broken hearted and angry at the flag man I walk out of the office and throw all 17 of my Killkenny Tourist Brochures into the air and they float down, carpeting the platform with information while I walk of teary-eyed.

Only later, to have to go pick them all up and catch a bus .