My ordeal.

Last night was a lot of fun as Jorge finally planned Peruvian night for us. We all met up at Sweet Devil Moon in Decatur for some great food and great times. After that we headed over to the Universal Joint, where yours truly bowed to peer pressure and got pretty toasted. Michelle got me home just fine last night and this morning I decided to be self-sufficient and get my car myself.

So, at around 9:15 I walked over to the Marta (our light rail system) station about a mile from me. It wasn't raining so I thought the walk would do me good. When I got to the station I didn't have exact change for the $1.75 fare, so I put $5 in the machine and got back 6 quarters and two Marta tokens. I walked through the gate and put one of my tokens in. It was at that point that all hell broke loose.

I wasn't 5 feet through the gate when a cop yelled, "Stop!" It took a second but I realized she was talking to me. She said, "I saw that."
"Saw what?" I said.
"You didn't pay your fare."
"Yes I did."
"No you didn't."
"I did too, I even had to put $5 in the machine, here's my change and my other token." And then I showed it to her.
"Please leave the station."
"Are you kidding me?"
"Leave the station now!"
"Who is your supervisor?"
At that point she got really mad and pulled out her handcuffs and said, "You do not want to make me do this. Leave the station now." The shock started to wear off and I was getting pretty pissed by now so I told her again that I paid my fare.

"No you did not, leave the station now." She's yelling at this point and so am I. There was a man standing by the gate laughing at the situation so I pointed to him and said, "See, even he saw me pay the fare." He confirmed that and the cop stopped yelling and calmed down. Then she pulled a token out of her pocket and used it to get through the gate. She told me she would let me go this time, but she wanted to walk upstairs with me to "tell me how things are done around here."

I don't know what she meant by that because right then she got a call on her radio. She looked at me and said, "Damn, I have to handle this." Before she left I was able to get her name from her badge, M. Wheeler, and her badge number, C-697. I only got a quick look at it though so I'm not 100% sure.

In any event, I'm pretty ticked off at how I was treated. I know people dodging fares is a big problem for Marta, but she had no reason to treat me the way she did. I'm considering writing a letter of complaint about it and probably will. I've heard a lot of people say Marta is the worst public transportation system in the country and at this point, I couldn't agree more.