I got busted by a metro official this morning. I'm usually pretty good about paying attention, keeping a good thick buffer of tourists in front of me at all times. The metro officials pinpoint one or two people per large group letting ninety-five per cent of people get by. It really isn't that hard to avoid them unless you're dumb enough to go down the escalators solo.
     It was Sunday morning and I wasn't thinking. I had my nose planted in Norman Mailer's American Dream and not because it was that interesting but because I wanted to finish it at some point today. I got to the bottom and this fat, ugly guy was waiting there. He flashed his official badge and asked me for my ticket in Czech which gave me a great opportunity to play dumb. After he switched to English, I pretended like I was appreciative for letting me know I needed to have a ticket and offered to buy one off of him. He became more adamant at this point, actually feigning insult from my assumption that he was but a mere ticket salesman and adding that I would now have to pay a fine of 400 kcs. I pulled out the change in my pocket and after briefly poking through it, I told him all I had was 39 kcs. He told me he would take a credit card. I lied and said I didn't have any.
     At this stage, things got a little strange. He pretty much laid into me about common decency, personal pride, honor, the unwritten code of tourism. I listened attentively and at the end when he tried again to get 400 kcs from me, I had no other response but the same thing I'd told him earlier. He sent me away with a disgusted scowl and a wave of his hand.
     As I was leaving, feeling relieved, I could have sworn he spit at me. But it wasn't like a loogie. It was more like those spits that you're meant to hear and not feel so much.