Saturday 12 July 2008

Planes, Keys, Phones, Automobiles and Radioactive Burgers

Ill Omens

I thought I'd tell you about my day. Friday, to be precise. I'm not superstitious, but if I was, I'd say that people are wrong about Friday 13th. It's the 11th you have to watch out for.

Promising Start

Things seemed to start okay. It was my last day in Scotland. I packed my stuff and checked out. At this point, I had already made my first mistake of the day.

I got to the airport in plenty of time to catch the flight, which was due to leave around 7pm. I checked my bags in and went through security and an x-ray. The x-ray machine didn't go off. More about this later.

Oops.

At around this time I realised about my first mistake, which was leaving my mobile phone charging in the hotel room. I'd not recommend doing this, by the way.

Getting Nowhere Slowly

When it came time to check in, there were only two of us at the gate, and no staff. All mention of our flight had vanished from the information screens. There had been no announcement, but the flight had been cancelled.

So we had to go back out, and get our bags from the carousel. Except that there were no bags on the carousel. We were told to wait and they would appear. As if by magic, they didn't.


We went to the luggage place. They were busy saying they'd phone someone to check when my colleague noticed his case in their office. "Oh yes," they said, "we took some cases off the carousel earlier because no one claimed them."

Then it was time to check in the bags (again), and get booked onto the 9pm flight. Which was delayed by an hour.

At some point around this time I made my second mistake of the day.

Something I Ate?

I went through the x-ray machine. This time it went off, but they couldn't find any guns or bombs, so I can only guess that it must have been the burger I had just eaten. Which was strange, because it tasted okay.


Finally we got on a crowded plane, and 45 minutes later was at our destination back in England. The plane then sat on a taxi-way (or whatever the technical term is) for about 20 minutes until it could get clearance to trundle near enough to the airport for a bus to take us to the terminal, but under the circumstances that was a mere detail.

Oh, Shit...

We finally got home at around 1am, rather than the planned 9pm. In the taxi home I realised about my second mistake - losing my keys.

Since I was given a house key as a teenager I have never ever lost my keys. Well, until yesterday, that is. My keys, like my wallet, are always with me. So I was homeless at 1am in the morning.

Nice People

My colleague very kindly offered to let me stay in his spare room for the night, thus saving me the time and expense of trying to find a hotel, and I finally got home at 11pm on Saturday, thanks to the nice people at the letting agency. The nice people at the hotel are sending my phone to me, and all I have to do now, apart from have a much-needed shower, is to work out how to get into the locked garage that contains my car (there was no spare garage key)...

The End

Which I think means that I can officially declare Friday 11th over, and start enjoying my weekend.

I hope your day was better...

19 comments:

Dan said...

FRIST

Dan said...

What a shitty day, Murphy's Law.
I'm glad to hear that they are sending you "man phone back"

Brian o vretanos said...

Dan:

Yes, at least it shouldn't get damaged in the post ;-)

Jean Knee said...

As long as they don't mark it fragile it should be okay.


Everything about travelling is so frightful. That's why I only leave home if forced.

Brian o vretanos said...

Jean Knee:

I shouldn't really complain too much - other people have a much worse time of it.

The main thing I don't like is the length of time that it all takes.

Bee said...

Maybe you should ease up the scotch the night before you travel?

Bee said...

That was snarky of me, I take that back.

Bee said...

maybe.

Jean Knee said...

maybe he needs to add more scotch before the flight

Brian o vretanos said...

Bee:

Maybe I should just get a new brain ;-)

Anyway, how did you know that I had a few Scotches the night before?

Jean Knee:

Drink is not what you need when things are not going well, so I stayed totally sober for the occasion.

Bee said...

I'm watching Rambo First Blood and I think I just saw David Carusso!!

He looked old even back then!

Just thought I'd share.

Bee said...

If any of you guys want to watch Rambo again, DON'T!

I have to finish it now but the acting is HORRIBLE!

Bee said...

I might need some scotch when it's over.

Brian o vretanos said...

DC takes himself far too seriously, at least he does on CSI: Miami. They more than make up for that by having Emily Procter though...

Tracy Rambles On And On said...

I think that any day spent traveling by plane is a terrible day.
When we last traveled, I had all of these great ideas on how to keep the kids entertained on the plane.
Then we had to spend two hours checking in, taking our shoes off, putting our shoes back on, herding all of the children towards the gate only to find that our plane was delayed by three hours.
All of my bright ideas were spent during the three hour delay and the kids were then miserable on the plane.
I hate flying.

Dan said...

I just noticed that I mis spelled First !

Brian o vretanos said...

Tracy:

I've never taken young children on a plane - I'm sure it's ghastly...

Anonymous said...

I admit, I had to giggle..just because the whole thing is something I would do!

I hope you've made it into your car! I seem to have flashed a funny mental of image of you stuck half in and half out of a window while attempting to break in :-D

Tee Hee.

Brian o vretanos said...

Chris:

CHRIS! WELCOME BACK!

I've got a spare car key, so the thing I need to get into is the garage. Fortunately, since I walk to work, I can solve that in slower time (they're checking with the property's owner to see if they have a key).