Security on CityRail trains is nothing and nowhere to be seen at the best of times. These so-called guards of safety have been known to get upset when commuters quite audibly yell into their ears disrupting them from an evening to midnight slumber on the seats.
One of the more basic duties includes the continual traversing and inspection of carriages, start to end in five minutes or less. Yet despite this, rookie guards have been held back by the older generation who believe that "trouble sorts itself out."
Not content with the ease and lack of supervision—they supervise themselves based on an honour system—some of the security guards have now taken to creating their own kind of amusement and "joyrides."
One such example takes place in the hours leading up to the new day's dawn and at a time when most citizens are sound asleep in their beds. An unsuspecting home number is dialled and when the recipient picks up, the sinker bobs. Then, having chosen the surname from a phone directory, the security guards then proceed to lure the victim of the prank into believing that a family member has been injured or such.
Yet the call never really develops beyond that.
Confusion and bewilderment often follow the minds of those woken rudely at odd times of the night, and it is this state of mind the joke relies heavily upon. In failing everything else, the joke dies a meandering death on the more clued in of the populace who promptly hang up and wait for the morning after.
Dead is dead.
Written on Tuesday, 15 April 2003