how to make me lose a night of sleep...and my mind.

step one: when i do the final check of my itinerary at 2am, how about you post in BIG BLACK BOLD lettering that hard tickets have been issued to me and that i HAVE to have these paper tickets in order to get on the flight.

step two: your office is closed until 8am the following morning. and i need to be at the airport by 11am.

step three: and how about realizing that i have NOT received ANY paper tickets. and turning my room over in case i did, but i forgot.

step four: and just for kicks let's throw in a temperamental cell phone. it may or may not let you make calls or send text messages. it has more important things to do sometimes like switch off at will or make incessant unnecessary noise.

step five: when i wake up at 7am and count down the hours till your office opens how about my friend internet also decides to take a timeout. so now i can't even access my itinerary or reservation number (not that it matters, since phone is still determined not to do its job, except blasting the alarm every 10 minutes because the sleep function WON'T turn off). so with no means of instant conversation...i may as well have entered the medieval ages. i mean, seriously. what am i supposed to do. send a letter of complaint?

step six: finally at 8.30 i get some cell phone service and i find my reservation number in my calendar. in order to get reception on my phone i'm standing in my neighbors lawn with my pj's on. hair askew. the twenty minutes of sleep i got all night, not helping my morning face. after listening to one eighties track after another, smiling at neighbours going to work as if it is perfectly normal to plant myself on their lawn half dressed first thing on a friday, i finally get a human on the other end and i want to ask them on a date. i'm just so excited to be able to tell them my concern and have them figure it out...and OH the line drops out.

i literally looked up at the sky and wailed nOoooooooooooooooooo.

like a three year old who just was told no more Dora the Explorer.

several deep breaths later i tried again. another 9 minute hold listening to cat stevens among other classics. then, sweet victory, another human. before she could even ask me how she could help i recited my reservation number, told her my name and expressed that if this trip didn't happen my blood would be on her hands.

and guess what? there was a problem with THEIR system. there were no tickets issued. it's just an e-ticket (like i had thought up until 2am last night). and so everything was fine. chantelle from customer services PROMISES.

but considering this series of events that transpired in less than 7 hours, am i naive enough to think that it will all be smooth sailing from here on out?

not really. but here is to a positive attitude and the fact that i've now bonded with my neighbors on a deeper level.

x