The curse of the ticket gate procrastinators...

The train stations I have to frequent due to work (Kurume, Yanagawa) seem to be places where annoying people congregate. From the bus queue jumpers to the mobile phone shouters they all contribute in their own small ways to sully otherwise good days or compound the already bad ones.

But of all the people that I dislike the most, it has to be the ticket gate procrastinators that win the prize. There are three distinct types, which I will attempt to describe below.

Type One - The Ticket Searcher

Having spent 15+ minutes twiddling their thumbs en route, the ticket searcher waits until they are at the ticket gate to stop and slowly search for their ticket, being careful not to apologise to the ever growing crowd of people behind them.

Type Two - The Time Checker

Perhaps not as calculatingly annoying as the ticket searcher, the time checker nonetheless strolls into position in front of the gate and comes to a stop, nonchalantly gazing at the overhead departure board and causing a similar hold up.

Type Three - The Ticket Secreter

Arguably the most annoying of the three, the ticket secreter passes through the ticket gate only to come to an immediate dead stop to either a) slowly find their bag and put their ticket away or b) pause for no apparent reason. Unfortunately, this nuisance manifests itself on the outward phase of the journey (point a) and the return (points a and b). The one saving grace is that it could happen more, but those with travel passes are usually more au fait with commuting etiquette to do so).

Usually things are only ever made worse if, for example, a time checker moves laterally whilst looking at the departure board, thus blocking multiple ticket gates instead of just one, but there remains the ominous danger of a hybrid of the three, a TICTISTIS if you will, who starts as a time checker, changes into a ticket searcher and finally becomes a ticket secreter. Thankfully I've never come across such a monster, at least not yet...