D5. Sleeping car
should have
Douglas Brown was a businessman who lived in London but had a lot of work in Perth in Scotland. He often travelled by train on 'The Night Caledonian', an overnight train from London to Scotland. He preferred the train to the plane because he arrived feeling fresh for important business meetings when he arrived in Perth. The only problem was, he was a heavy sleeper, so he needed to set his alarm clock to wake up for the right stop. One day, after the train had set off from London, he realised he'd forgotten to pack his alarm clock. Before he went to sleep, he spoke to one of the attendants.
'I should have brought my alarm clock with me, but I forgot it. I have to wake up in time to get off the train at Perth at seven o'clock. I absolutely mustn't miss my stop by oversleeping, so could you please make sure I get off the train there, however sleepy I am.'
The attendant wrote down Douglas' name in a little book and made a firm promise to wake him up at the right time in the morning. Douglas went to sleep in his compartment almost immediately.
When he woke up in the morning, he found that it was ten to nine and the train was pulling into the final station in Inverness, 120 miles further north than Perth.
He was furious and went up to the attendant and said, 'Look what's happened, you fool! You should have woken me up at half past six and you didn't. You complete idiot! Now I've missed my business meeting!'
After he had left, one of the other passengers commented to the attendant, 'He wasn't very polite, was he? He shouldn't have called you an idiot like that.'
'Oh that's nothing!' said the attendant, 'You should have heard what Dougal Black said when I pushed him onto the platform at Perth at seven o'clock this morning.'
Grammar: should have + past participle
Match the situations with the criticisms.
Choose the correct verb from the box to complete these sentences, using should / shouldn't have + past participle.
Vocabulary exercises
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