Monday, September 01
Well, my wallet is well and truly gone - something I discovered shortly after making the last post - and this has, in a pecular way, given me faith in humanity. Yes, somebody has presumably made off with my wallet and all the money in it. But everyone I dealt with about it - the lost and found, security, the dealers upstairs, random fans - has gone out of their way to be helpful and kind to me. I was fed for two days on someone else's kindness (and you *are* getting paid back for that, dammit, whether you want it or not). It pretty much backs up my feeling that people are, deep down, generally nice. As another example, just before the wallet was lost, I was trying to buy a Pratchett book from the signing and came up about $5 short.
"I'll just run to the ATM," I said, but he was already shaking his head vigorously.
"No no no, you want to get in the line before it gets any worse. Tell you what. You take this, go ahead and get it signed, and *then* you go on to the ATM, and you can come back and give me the rest later."
See?
In other news, airports are unspeakable pits of hell which shower you with strange slips of paper and then do their absolute best to make sure you loose them. I was run through a gauntlet of forms and scanners and security people and those silly rope mazes, finally made it to the gate, tried to call my mother only to discover that a simple call of one minute to the States would cost me $4.15. After a bit of rooting I got this together, but - and this was the catch - only if I counted my $2 coins. The machine did not take $2 coins. I was debating going around and testing my Human Kindness Theory again when I was paged by the airline people. Apparently the plane I was supposed to catch from Newark had been eaten or something - at any rate I was not going to be able to make my connection - and instead they wanted to hustle me onto a direct flight that left in 10 minutes. There was a great deal of panic and trouble but in the end I made it, and on the bright side I actually made it back to Charlotte 3 hours earlier than I would have. Incidentally, the flight I took *to* Toronto was supposed to be a direct flight, but for some reason I ended up changing planes in Newark. This flight was supposed to have had one change but ended up being a direct. Airport Logic, Airport Justice.
More begging and a promisory note required to get my car out of hock at the remote parking lot, since I could not pay the parking fee (see "I lost my wallet", above.) I also discovered, rather belatedly, that when the cat had jumped through the window my brother left down the night before I left and coated my car seat with cat hair, she had also deposited a dead rabbit on the floor behind the driver's seat. At least, I assume that's what happened. I cannot for the life of me imagine how else a dead rabbit got in the back of my car. After 5 days in a baking hot parking lot it was rather ripe, not to mention crawling with maggots and other little miracles of nature. I managed to scrape the worst of it out but was still obliged to make the 2 1/2 hour drive home with all the windows rolled down and my head out the window. Tomorrow I get to figure out whether eu de maggot-ridden rabbit can be gotten out of car carpet. Lovely.
Hmm. Looking back over the roller coaster of the past few days, I can only conclude that I have been unlucky enough to draw the attention of a God. A really bored God. One with the emotional maturity of a ten-year-old ("Here, let's poke it with a stick and see what happens.")
"I'll just run to the ATM," I said, but he was already shaking his head vigorously.
"No no no, you want to get in the line before it gets any worse. Tell you what. You take this, go ahead and get it signed, and *then* you go on to the ATM, and you can come back and give me the rest later."
See?
In other news, airports are unspeakable pits of hell which shower you with strange slips of paper and then do their absolute best to make sure you loose them. I was run through a gauntlet of forms and scanners and security people and those silly rope mazes, finally made it to the gate, tried to call my mother only to discover that a simple call of one minute to the States would cost me $4.15. After a bit of rooting I got this together, but - and this was the catch - only if I counted my $2 coins. The machine did not take $2 coins. I was debating going around and testing my Human Kindness Theory again when I was paged by the airline people. Apparently the plane I was supposed to catch from Newark had been eaten or something - at any rate I was not going to be able to make my connection - and instead they wanted to hustle me onto a direct flight that left in 10 minutes. There was a great deal of panic and trouble but in the end I made it, and on the bright side I actually made it back to Charlotte 3 hours earlier than I would have. Incidentally, the flight I took *to* Toronto was supposed to be a direct flight, but for some reason I ended up changing planes in Newark. This flight was supposed to have had one change but ended up being a direct. Airport Logic, Airport Justice.
More begging and a promisory note required to get my car out of hock at the remote parking lot, since I could not pay the parking fee (see "I lost my wallet", above.) I also discovered, rather belatedly, that when the cat had jumped through the window my brother left down the night before I left and coated my car seat with cat hair, she had also deposited a dead rabbit on the floor behind the driver's seat. At least, I assume that's what happened. I cannot for the life of me imagine how else a dead rabbit got in the back of my car. After 5 days in a baking hot parking lot it was rather ripe, not to mention crawling with maggots and other little miracles of nature. I managed to scrape the worst of it out but was still obliged to make the 2 1/2 hour drive home with all the windows rolled down and my head out the window. Tomorrow I get to figure out whether eu de maggot-ridden rabbit can be gotten out of car carpet. Lovely.
Hmm. Looking back over the roller coaster of the past few days, I can only conclude that I have been unlucky enough to draw the attention of a God. A really bored God. One with the emotional maturity of a ten-year-old ("Here, let's poke it with a stick and see what happens.")
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