O.K. ... to get straight to the point, I have to say this event is 100% true and happened to me last summer, while I was attending some sort of summer school on cultural events, in Bucharest, Romania. For some, this detail may have already said a lot.

It was a rainy day, and together with one colleague from that school we decided to take the bus (since the metro station was further away and we didn't want to get soaked) to get from the morning event we had just attended to the one which was about to begin in another place. As we were in a rush, and with all the pouring rain and the agitation around us in the bus station, we commonly agreed to get on the bus though knowing we had no tickets on us (I must say I may have decisively influenced this decision, to be honest).

Being already pretty wet, we couldn't wait to get home, change and get ready for the next event: 'it shouldn't take long', we thought, since it was a 3-4 stops-drive. But what do you know? Along with us, the ticket collector got on, and started checking. When he reached us, we had already a story prepared. It turned out not to be such a good idea as we thought in the first place. We pretended to be foreigners and have no clue whatsoever of what they wanted from us. They tried to explain in simple Romanian words, syllable by syllable, that we had to show tickets, or else...pay the fee. 

I then remembered i had some older tickets in my wallet and started to look for them. The tension was growing...a smirk appeared on my face when I found them (no less than 4 tickets) and thought the joke was on them. But nooo, the tickets were all used, and not one did match with the "mould". So we got back to business, and to the 'language of gymnastics'

We almost got away with it, since they were getting bored of us, but at that time, one of the two collectors (they always come in packs of at least 2) saw with his eagle-eye the card/pass hanging on my friend's neck. Needless to say we didn't realize that ourselves, and of course, her name was as Romanian as can be. That was the moment our plan got screwed and we felt so embarrassed. We were so close too...

We got off the bus. They handed us our fees. We couldn't look them in the eyes. Rain was still pouring. We realized how much time we were losing (we already passed our due stop long time before with all the 'conversation') and were thinking whether we were to miss the following event or not. Everything seemed pretty crappy and I felt bad for having done all that. The fee was pretty consistent, but now, I always have a good laugh when I look back at what happened and the way  we tried to escape.