Thursday #19 – the day was not off to a good start when my phone went off at 1am to inform me I was on holidays. If I was in fact on holidays I could probably overlook this annoying feature of my calendar that I was previously unaware of; but since I had to be at work in 7 hours time I did not appreciate the wake up call. Having considered a Thai rendezvous with DTM in February, I had long ago requested 10 days off work before going back to uni. When it became clear to me that these travel plans would not be eventuating I decided to still have my time off work to have a break before embarking on 5th year uni. A week or 2 ago I decided to reconsider my plans to travel and in doing so informed work that I was back on board as I would need some funding for my trip.
Work was rather monotonous this Thursday as last week’s stationery packs had to be paid for so I spent 8 hours manually entering in credit card numbers and making phone calls to parents who had either written their details illegibly, given me the wrong expiration date, not given me an expiration date, had their 10 year old write the details in thick red marker so that all the numbers merge into one or in one case had their credit card cancelled after someone walked into their house and stole their wallet. Sounds a bit strange but if it’s not true I’m still giving that mum points for creativity, it was better than the other excuses of “oh it’s my husband’s card I don’t know the number” or “I just paid some bills, can you wait 'til Tuesday to put the payment through?”
After another riveting day at the office it was home and onto the computer to book some flights. After going round in circles with DTM for 2 weeks about whether or not I join him in Barbados I decided to just bloody book the flight before either of us changed our mind. Thanks to some tricky rules about airport security and having to provide accommodation details before being able to book flights to America, I almost booked 2 flights to NYC. Well by “almost” I mean I did and had to make a panicked call to Qantas to clarify that I would not be on 2 separate flights on the same day to New York and could she please cancel the second booking. Oops.
With that sorted, my bank then phoned to double check that I was responsible for the charges (I suspect late night Caribbean Airlines charges in US dollars are perhaps a bit suspicious) and I assured “Amanda” that I was and she became one of the first people to hear about my holiday plans…well not so much hear about my plans as just be aware that I was paying for someone to fly to Barbados and back. I realised how badly I needed a holiday when a flight purchase rings alarm bells with my bank who suspect there must be fraud at play.
After informing DTM of the day’s developments he raised 2 concerns – 1: had I already booked because if not he would happily put it on his credit card so that I can pay him back and he can reap the frequent flyer rewards (so thoughtful) and 2: would I be happy to spend my days sitting in an inflatable pool drinking alcohol and watching cricket? I assured him that if I was in an inflatable pool, drinking in Barbados I couldn’t care less what I was watching, and rejected his suggestion that I may need to brush up on the rules before heading over. I told him I was pretty sure I could follow cricket – someone bowls, someone bats and occasionally they run. Got it. Now bring on the pool and booze.
A boring start to the day but a very promising end! A lot more money changed hands than would have done on a Thursday with free movies but I’m fairly confident that the 50ish hours of flights I’ve just booked will involve some sort of “free” movies so it’s a win all round. I have my suspicions that the dent in my bank account could lead to some boring Thursdays in the future though.
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