I found myself in need of a replacement bus pass.
This turned out to be a bit more complicated than I expected, given the simplicity of obtaining the original, but finally I presented myself at the Town Hall, having declined the opportunity to pay by debit card over the phone – a procedure which would have incurred a charge of £2.50 on top of the £5 for the new card.
It was only at the point of taking out my cheque that I was asked: Did you just lose it, or was it stolen? Because there’s no charge if it was stolen - & you have a crime number.
We ended by agreeing that it was much simpler, all things considered, for me just to pay & have done with it
The interesting question was whether I would have thought it worthwhile going through the procedure of getting a crime number, whatever that is these days, if I had known from the start that it might be ‘worth’ £7.50.
Or would I have thought that my time, plus the avoidance of irritation & exasperation is worth more than that, given that reporting it to the police was highly unlikely to have resulted in the return of my original card.
