I got fined on the train today. I probably deserved it, after several years of travelling with various different kinds of invalid ticket, and up until today had never been too bitter about having to cough up the €40 - after all, I have probably saved a lot more than that over the years.
This time, however, I feel aggrieved. My ticket was expired by about seven minutes, which I had not noticed. I tried to appeal to the decent, kind side of the fucking asshole, also explaining that I had validated it long before the train arrived, thus wasting a few valuable minutes of its validity. No deal though. He was simply a fucking asshole, and wouldn't give in. So, of course, I started being rude to him as soon as I realised that he was never going to budge, and called him the asshole that he very clearly is.
But it just got me thinking about the huge number of occasions since I moved here in which I have not been seen as a human being, but rather as some sort of disobedient robot who needs to be taught to obey without question, something which is very much not in my nature. It's not as though I am any sort of anarchist, not by any stretch of the imagination. I know that rules are there for a reason, and it certainly is not for them to be broken. But why not look on people as (mostly) cognisant individuals on occasion, ones who sometimes deserve a break and a bit of kindness?
I would just love it if that guy had appreciated that I was not trying to get a free ride, and that my impassioned pleas for leniency did not come easily to me.
I would love it if the woman in the post office would accept my old student ID, my bank card, my credit card, my health insurance card and my Hertha season ticket as clear proof that I am who I say I am, without insisting I walk home in the rain and bring back my passport in order to get my package.
I wish the German Catholic Church would appreciate that I am not Catholic and should not have to pay tax to them simply because I was baptised twenty-six years ago and was not aware of their ridiculous rules that require people to specifically withdraw from the German Church even though they never actually joined in the first place.
I would love it if my doctor could see that charging me €20 for a thirty-second consultation every three days while my finger was busted is profiteering at best, outright greed at worst.
It's no secret that Berliners can be rude, obnoxious, unfriendly and unpleasant, but today (and I am not ruling out the possibility that the dreary November rain and the fact that I had to walk to work in it is having a very negative effect on me) they just seemed a little heartless too.
