Dumb Blonde

This morning on the bus, a woman got on with her Oyster Card in hand. She was initially blocking my view, but I could tell that she was trying to get it to read her card, and nothing was happening. Usually there is an aural signal that beeps if your card is accepted and beeps twice if it's rejected. But oddly enough, I didn't hear any beeping as she kept doing something to the reader.

It occurred to me that the reader could be broken, as they sometimes are, but then I recalled that it had just been beeping for everyone else. Frustrated, the woman turned to the next reader, fully within my vision and placed her card over the screen. Annoyed that the reader did not respond, she slapped it with her full palm against the screen a couple more times, holding it there in an exasperated fashion. She then walked through the bendy bus to the next set of doors and tried the same thing on both readers at that door before walking all the way to the driver where I heard a faint 'beep'.

Of course, at the reader by the driver it must have become instantly apparent that you do not put your card on the screen since it resides behind the driver glass, but rather on the large friendly yellow pad which anyone who owns an oyster card should really, really fucking know. Dumb blonde.