I think you can try, but most likely they will advise you to get the plastic card (Metro SmartTrip card) next time - not only is it rechargeable (so you don't have to carry 14 metrocards in your wallet with 0.75 on each), but with those they *will* refund your money (minus a $5 charge to replace the card) if the card is lost or stolen (or washed, presumably).

Bummer about the wash.

i used to have these stacks of paper metro fare cards laying around, each with somewhere between 5 and 95 cents leftover. sometimes, they wouldn't work (either the fare machines or the turnstiles refused to recognize my leftover pittance). i finally asked a station manager (at silver spring) how i could get some sort of refund, as those 20 cent cards started to add up. she handed me the biggest clipboard i've ever seen, told me to complete an ominously long form, and explained that i would get a check for my 15 cents in 8 to 10 weeks. perhaps there's hope?

From http://wmata.com/riding/refundpolicy.cfm:

"Damaged or malfunctioning passes and farecards can be exchanged or replaced only after the malfunction is verified by a station manager. He or she will complete a fare adjustment envelope and give it to you. Retain the stub with the receipt number and drop the postage-paid, self addressed envelope in any mailbox. A replacement farecard will be mailed to you. For an immediate replacement, take the envelope to a Metro sales office."

Good luck!

Thanks for finding that, Beth. Looks like just the ticket (as it were).

No prob. As they say, been there, done that :)

Matt,

A quick question about ontology. You wrote that you have elsewhere argued that "words and images remain as ontologically distinct".

I think that there are a variety of domains that overlap in your presentation of the washer-fed ticket. There is the physical object as it exists in the domain of the economy of exchange. There is your image of the object. There are your words about the object. There are your words about the image that refers to the object.

Now I understand ontological distinctions between that which is represented and semiotic constructions doing the representing (refer to the represented). What puzzles me is the assertion of ontological distinctions between different semiotic constructions that refer to the same represented.

Can you elaborate on your notion of "ontological distinction"?

Thanks

Francois,

I think I'm using "ontological" in a simpler (though hopefully not simplistic?) way to refer to the distinctive properties of electronic text and images as computational data types. The essay itself unpacks those distinctions.