Well, talk about being embarrassed.

Last weekend I was mortified during what I assumed was going to be a chilled day out in Edinburgh.

The sun was shining, I’d had my hair and nails done and was looking forward to a wee trip through to the capital with my friend Jane (that’s not her real name).

So what went wrong I hear you ask?

Well, as a rail commuter of many years, I am well aware of how the train services operate, but my pal Jane, whose rarely on a train, thought she’d be a bit of a smart ass.

Boarding at Airdrie, we had just pulled out of Bathgate station when the train conductor appeared, and before I had a chance to utter a word, Jane piped up.

“Two singles from Bathgate to Haymarket please.”

I thought I was hearing things.

“Bathgate?” queried the conductor.

“Yes Bathgate.”

“Well, how did you get through the barriers without buying a ticket?” He queried.

At this point I wanted to shrivel up and die.

“We just did,” Jane insisted.

I assumed the conductor was then going to issue our tickets. But no.

“I’ll just go and phone Bathgate station and check,”he announced.

“Because they should not have let you through without a ticket.”

My eyes pleaded with Jane to admit that we got on at Airdrie as the unamused conductor returned and stood before us.

“Well.” He puffed.

“The staff at Bathgate are adamant that there is no way you could have gotten through the barriers without a ticket.”

“Well, we just did.” Jane repeated like a demented parrot.

And soon a Mexican stand-off between Jane and the conductor was in place.

“Well, we just did,” she repeated over and over as the conductor towered over us with his now redundant ticket machine in hand.

“We just did.” Jane was now seriously irritating me never mind the conductor.

Pulling into Haymarket station the cool, calm conductor decided to let us leave the train ticketless and suggested.

“OK, well I’ve no time to issue you a ticket so just get them at Haymarket ticket office.”

Stepping off the train, Jane turned and gave me a knowing nod as if to say, ‘see I told you it would be fine.’

But it wasn’t fine.

In fact, it was anything but fine.

Nearing the top of the escalator I noticed that it was impossible to escape the confines of the busy station as there was a long line of turnstiles, which might as well have been the Berlin Wall, and only accessible with a valid ticket.

I glowered at Jane as we were now prisoners in this very open jail.

“You buy the tickets or we’ll never get out of here,” I snapped at my pal.

“OMG,” I thought to myself.

“This is a disastrous start to our chilled day out in the capital.”

I sat to one side as Jane stood in line to buy our tickets.

However, unbeknown to us, the conductor had phoned ahead and given the guys in the ticket office the heads up.

Finally reaching the front of the queue.

“Two singles from Bathgate please,” Jane tried her luck again whilst I just wanted to go home.

“Sorry,” was the curt reply.

“But I’ve checked with the guys at Bathgate and there is no way you could have gotten through the barriers without a ticket.”

“Well, we just did.” Jane was now seriously stressing me out.

“We just did.”

I cowered in my seat and pretended to be on my phone whilst having vivid images of us being detained in an Edinburgh jail.

A minute later Jane gestured that she was heading to a nearby cash machine before joining the end of the queue again.

“What on earth are you doing now?” I muttered.

“We’ve been in this bloody station for twenty five minutes.”

Apparently Jane’s card was declined and she had to lift cash to pay for the tickets.

Finally, she appeared clutching two tickets.

“Because we couldn’t have gotten through the barrier at Bathgate, he was going to charge us from Helensburgh!”

My pal sounded as though it was his fault we were in this predicament.

“So, I finally admitted we got on at Airdrie.”

Sitting in a bar with a much needed glass of wine I finally managed to relax and ponder over the day’s fiasco.

“So Jane, how much would we have saved if we’d gotten away with it?”

“About £6,” Jane replied.

“But it wasn’t about the money Janice.”

“Somehow the words just came out.”

“What do you mean the words just came out?” I was gobsmacked.

“They just did.”

She parroted again.

“They just did.”

“They just……..”

Argh……. What a day.