Recently I went on a little weekend trip to Birmingham. Sometimes it is nice to get out of the big smoke, you know? And FYI, English cities are massively underrated. They have everything you could ever want: Travelodge, TK Maxx, Nando’s, Po Na Na, JD Sports, all the faves. Purrrrrfect.

After getting settled in my hotel room I decided to take a trip into town for a snoop around the shops and local amenities of Birmingham. Luckily, there was a conveniently placed bus stop no more than two minutes from my hotel. A bus quickly arrived and I hopped aboard. After stepping onto the bus, John (who I was with) politely enquired with the bus driver about the price of a ticket to the city centre. The man said £1.20. So John slotted in his £1.20. I, however, assumed that he had popped in the money for both of us and trotted on past the bus driver breezily. We exchanged a polite smile and off I went to locate some seats that were prettily decorated with Big Mac wrappers and other unsightly shit.

We got a seat next to two smack heads and their really cute cross bread mongrel dog. (It had a snout like a fox and a really nice black and white spotty coat). It was not until we were comfortably seated that talk moved to bus fares. Quickly we realised that John only paid for himself (chivalrous) and that I had definitely not paid my fare. Whoops. Bit embarrassing. What do I do? Confess and begrudgingly slot my coins into the machine? Hmmmmm… no. Instead, we decided to act casual and just shimmy off the bus as if we were none the wiser. Hurray. This worked a treat. High fives all round, etc.

So, the following day after our fun and frolics in Birmingham on a Saturday night (massive) we vacated our hotel and headed off back towards the city centre. Luckily, we again waited no more than a minute for a bus to arrive and take us to our destination. Again, John enquired about the price of a journey into town (for some reason the prices seemed different on this bus). The driver informed him that it is £1.50. This change of price threw John so we were not sure if that was for both of us. He popped in some coins and off we trotted once again to locate some seats. This time we opted for the upper deck to take in all the sites of the not-so-city-central parts of Brum we were staying in. Once again talk moved to bus fares and once again I was informed that someone thought he had only taken care of Number One and I had not paid my fare. By now this series of events had become slight odd. Almost surreal. Was I missing something? Not once but twice had I managed to skip paying my fare, innocently smiled at the driver and he had said not a word to me. No mention of coughing up or “This bus isn’t moving”, nothing like that. I just hopped on and off the buses without a blink of an eye. So, so weird. But pretty great.

The only conclusion I could come up with is that when I am in Birmingham and on buses I have a hidden special power that allows me to become invisible. How cool is that?