They got me

To ride buses in Cluj, you buy little tickets (from portajohn sized offices with a plastic glass divider that has only a 1.5 inch high opening) that must be punched upon boarding.  The poles near the doors have these punch machines which are very simplistic, metallic large round buttons that you insert the ticket behind and then punch. Apparently each individual bus has its own pattern of holes punched. 

Usually I am pretty obedient about getting my ticket punched, but sometimes, when the bus really starts to resemble a cattle car, I am not going to endure 3 meters of the full-body contact with 16 different people so I can awkwardly cling to the pole (with 5 other people) and, with difficulty, try to insert the ticket and then struggle to punch the ticket while the bus frenetically starts and stops causing people to push up against each other even more than necessary.

My strategy is usually- well, it's not like a ticket controller could even push through this crowd. And also, I figured I would see someone coming since there's so many people I would have a moment to react.

Well clearly, this tactic didn't pan out quite as anticipated. I was taking the bus on a particularly crowded Saturday morning and had started to zone out, when a casual glance to my left revealed a man glancing at all tickets handed to him. I had a few panicked thoughts: maybe I'll just push towards the back of the bus? Maybe I'll pretend I don't speak Romanian? Maybe I'l just punch my ticket now? Neither of which totally worked because he was suddenly there.

He asked my twice for my ticket, and I tried to give him a blank, doleful stare. Finally, I gave him an old ticket I managed to find in my pocket.

Allow me to interject to tell you that 25 years ago, my dad pulled this trick off, with success, in Austria. All he had to do was play dumb a bit and then casually hand over an OLD ticket and the ticket collector just didn't want to have to deal with the foreigner so he let it pass. So then my mother, who had ducked away out of embarrassment at what was going to happen (ie, the typical Austrian fear of causing a scene that is enough to keep people in line), came back and marveled (in an irritated way) at his ability to get away with that, when an Austrian would have been thoroughly fined and embarrassed. 

Anyways, apparently mean dad has a more convincing playing dumb face, because when I handed over the ticket, the inspector looked at it carefully, then asked me where I had punched it.

MEEP. Dad pulled this off! And I am a young woman! Come ON!! Here, I'm trying a more winning smile! 

eeeh... I pointed over to the nearest hole puncher. He walks over, sticks in a scrap paper, punches it and shows me that the holes pattern in my ticket were different than this one. Meanwhile, I am like, WTF, when does the bus reach the next stop already?!?!?! 

Sigh. So I've been caught. Fine. Pretending you don't understand doesn't work. Fine. Handing over an old ticket and giving a beseeching look won't cut it. FINE.

So I had to get off with the ticket collector at the next stop and pay 20 lei. Grr. Not that much, I suppose, but, Dad, how'd you do it?!