Manic in Snorbans

I'm a clicker, a person paid to count people entering train stations on a shiny, low-tech clicking device.

Our company (which will remain nameless because I don't want to give them another reason to fire me because quite frankly they have enough) is trying to bring in electronic counters but the staff aren't too found of them. After all, whats a Clicker without her clicking machine? A silent, electronic counter just isn't as satisfying.

It also means that I can't make people uncomfortable by pretending I'm in that Lynx ad where the guys use a clicker to count the number of times people check them out. But even if people haven't seen that particular ad, it still freaks them out having some strange girl rugged up like a homeless person sitting at a station wink at them, lift her arm in an exaggerated gesture above her head and loudly click another number onto the counter.

Now a clicker's life isn't all sunshine, rainbows and freaking people out, sometimes the job gets tough. Like when you have to head out to the dodgy stations and hope someone doesn't try to kill you because you don't have any spare change for them.
I don't mind the dodgy stations on my side of town, I've grown to love them like a an abusive husband. Hmm bad comparsion. Actually it's more like, I don't mind them because they're not really far away, just farther North. They're my Northern roots... my Northside buddies! I love you Upfield and Broadmeadows even though you smell like car fumes and have a high delinquent to normal citizen ratio!

When I get fed up and angry is when I'm forced to do some other dodgy train line's end-o-the-line shit hole station. It's not my trainline trash, and like looking after someone else's bratty children it's hard to love them unconditionally. Lately I've been posted up at Ginifer station which you would be forgiven for not knowing where the hell it is. Anyway it's next to St Albans, but unlike St Albans it is void of any kind of shops, security or shelter. It's a desolate hole of a place and is only really used as a gateway to St Albans or Sunshine where people go to buy their heroin and ice.

I've been at Ginifer on platform 2 (that means trains head away from civilisation) twice in two weeks and it really makes me wonder who wants all this data for humble Ol' Ginifer?
Who really wants to know how many people are shuffling out in their trackie dacks and down the line one stop to the end of the earth? Bah it just made me even more bitter about being there. So anyhow I drove in at 7am only to find the carpark nearing full, which makes me feel bad for the locals; as if it isn't crap enough living out here they have to get up in the wee hours in order to get to the CBD when everybody else does. It's a reality check for a girl who complained about the move from Brunswick to Coburg years ago.

So I parked my little Mazda arse into a disabled zone with a clear view of the station entrance and locked my door. I had barely settled into my radio ritual and thermos coffee when a very angry elderly woman began yelling at me from her car. When motioned that I wasn't leaving she got out of her car and marched up to my window. She was absolutely furious that I had taken "her" park. Explaining my need for the spot and the nature of my work only bewildered her and along with my oddly died hair made her think I was some sort of delinquent loiterer. She pricked the air with her wrinkly pointed finger and said
"You park there, over there!"
She was pointing at another disabled spot 3 car bays away. I couldn't believe it, she didn't just want the disabled zone she wanted "her" disabled zone. Eventually she got tired of my calm, sleep deprived negotiations and succumbed to the alternative park. She then glared at me through my windshield as she hobbled the extra five meters to the platform.

About an hour later the sun was starting to warm the bitter Ginifer air and I was starting to forget about being accosted for doing my job. I looked up from my book (let me remind you Ginifer is not a busy place) only to meet the eyes of an even smaller and even angrier old woman screeching hysterically from her car. She also had the pointing thing going on, huge aggressive gestures that made her look alot bigger than her shriveled little self. She was reversing so that I could kindly "fuck off out of her space", unfortunately her reversing was holding up a long line of peak hour traffic who weren't impressed.

I unwound my window and she came marching the old lady march up to me. I didn't think it were possible for anyone to top the last senile tantrum but this lady put the first one to shame.
She wouldn't hear any of my excuses of pleads to "calm down" she just waved a grubby obselete-looking Nokia in my face and screamed "I calling the poleeeece!!!"
As stubborn as I am, I didn't want the police hassling me. Because it's happened before and they're not very aware of the secret world of clickers, they just think you're a trouble maker. So I moved and parked awkwardly on a excitingly unstable dirt pile around the corner, from which I could still get a good view. Old angry lady then did the march again up to my car and started writing down my number plates. God.

It was nearly nine-fifteen and I was counting down the last quarter-hour like you wouldn't believe when a shifty silhouette caught my attention. She was lanky and her brassy, bleached hair reached down to her back, dwarfing her bony frame. Pacing back and forth over the platform I'd probably counted her several times without realising, shit. Damn loiterers.
There is something about junkies, you can just pick them a mile away. Maybe its the loitering walk, the hunch, the sense of paranoia they seem to have as the impatiently wait around. And of course the cheap Eminem-brand plastic jackets they wear. Or maybe its imitation Eminem, i don't freaking know.

Anyway this decrepit woman walked over to my car which probably looked suspicious sitting in a dirt pile and motioned for a cigarette light. Nope, don't smoke I waved back. She then asked loudly, "Isnt their one in ya carr?"
I didn't want to treat her like dirt but at the same time I was really sick of people coming up to my car and she made me edgy. In the end I felt sorry for her. So I unwound the window yet again and she bounced over the fence and up to my dirt pile park. I'd never used the lighter in my car before and felt kind of dumb explaining this to Blondie McSmokebreath. Obviously she had found a light earlier and still reeked of the afterglow. She seemed nice enough though and we managed a brief conversation about what I was doing and where she was heading
"Up to Snorban's to see a friend" she said shakily, "then down to Sunshine to do the shopping"
"Is it ready yet?" She asked about the lighter, no it wasn't.
A long awkward silence commenced as we waited and waited.
"So you smoke choof?"
"Umm no, smoking doesn't really agree with me"
She looked down at me and with a smirk said "don't smoke ...don't drink?"
It was a patronising kind of statement but not unfriendly. I stupidly found myself becoming defensive and saying "No I drink", as if I was in year 7 again trying to prove myself. Unfortunately we'd suffered this lame conversation for no reason because the lighter ended up broken anyway. Blondie left and I managed to make my way out of the dirt pile without getting bogged and back to Coburg.

Here's to not getting Ginifer next week!