"Are you nervous?" asked the grinning kiwi.
"Yes, I’m frickin’ terrified!" I replied.
Instantly his smile vanished and he hunkered down beside me.
"OK, listen." he said in a quiet but firm tone. "You have absolutely nothing to worry about and I mean that. This equipment can handle a strain more than five times what we’ll be putting on it today. In all our years of operation, hundreds of thousands of people have done this and we’ve never had so much as a single injury. We’re experts and won’t let anything happen to you. So what do you say - are you going to give it a go?"
"Sure," I replied "let’s do it."
After the sincerity of his speech, I didn’t want to tell him that I wasn’t worried about getting hurt; I had every confidence in his operation. I was however, nervous that I might bottle out. Afraid that when the time came, I might be too scared to go through with it. I make no apologies for that. After all, it was the first time in my life I’d jumped off a 275 foot high bridge with only a thin strand of elastic preventing me from doing a face plant into 6 inches of water.
Bungee (or bungy) jumping is a modern version of an ancient ritual which took place on the island of Vanuatu, in the South Pacific. Known as "Gkol", it was a rite of passage whereby the young men would tie ropes made from vines around their ankles before hurling themselves off platforms high in the treetops, dropping like stones until the vines snapped taut and (hopefully) arrested their fall a moment before impact. There were no sophisticated formulas for calculating the length of the cord, or the body weight of the initiate, or the anticipated stretch – they worked that out by….well, nobody’s quite sure how they worked that out but the trick was to get as close to the ground as possible without actually making contact. This had the desire effect of enhancing one’s status in the village. Particularly with the ladies of the village.
Not surprisingly, it took some time for this activity to catch on elsewhere in the world and it wasn’t until the late 80’s when a semi-insane New Zealander named A.J. Hackett saw a video of the Gkol ritual being recreated by the equally loony members of Oxford (England) University’s Dangerous Sports Club. Hackett realized that others might be willing; not only to make such jumps themselves, but to pay for the experience and the germ of an idea was born.
With the help of a business partner named Henry van Asch and some Auckland University scientists, Hackett set about testing bungee cords and looking for suitable sites. In 1987, he himself jumped from the Eiffel Tower in Paris to make a very public display of his complete faith in the product – and to garner more than a bit of publicity. The world's first commercial bungee jump opened in New Zealand in 1988 and was hailed as the birth of adventure tourism in New Zealand. A mere 3 years later, I stood on a platform on a bridge high above Skipper’s Canyon, outside Queenstown on the South Island, fervently hoping I wouldn’t wet myself.
A bunch of us had ridden up in a mini-bus that morning. A mix of wealthy tourists, two American oil workers taking the scenic route home from the middle-east, a young family and a handful of backpacker types like me. At the time, Skipper’s Canyon was the highest commercial bungee jump in the world although that record has long since been surpassed. It was plenty high enough though and those bungee cords looked awfully fragile.
We chatted nervously while the employees made their preparations. "I’m not worried about myself, so much as my son" confided the father. "He’s only thirteen and I’m not comfortable with him doing this."
"Don’t worry." I told him "You’re still a young man – you can always have another kid." He thought this was hilarious but after seeing the look his wife gave me, I resolved to make sure she jumped before I did.
The two oil men swaggered confidently in public, but one confided to me "I just hope my buddy doesn’t realize how nervous I am." It was very touching when a few minutes later, I heard his friend mutter the exact same thing.
A number of people had brought cameras but of course, it wasn’t possible to photograph yourself so this required an assistant. A cute little British girl handed me her point n’ shoot with explicit instructions as to the compositions she was looking for.
"One of me on the platform, one jumping off, one swinging in the air and one of me being lowered into the boat." She was the first to go and caught up as I was in the excitement of the moment, I totally forgot the camera in my hand until it was all over and she was having the cords untied from her ankles. I fired off 4 snaps with my finger over the lens and when she later asked excitedly "Did you get them?" I fibbed and assured her they would be great. I’m afraid I don’t remember your name but if by any chance you’re reading this, cute little British girl then, uh...sorry.
Finally it was my turn and after receiving my little pep talk, I took a deep breath and poised myself at the edge of the abyss. "Look at the trees, let yourself go and don’t forget to have fun" advised my pal and after a bare moment’s hesitation, I bounced on the balls of my feet and leapt into space.
There was a brief moment of terror, then a mild concern that those trees were getting awfully close, then a close up look at the river and all of a sudden, everything was getting smaller once more. No jerk, no bounce, just a smooth rise back up towards the bridge. Then back down towards the river, then back up to the bridge and so on. I’d been zipping around for a few seconds before I realized I’d forgotten to yell "Yippee!" or anything else appropriate. Worried that people might think I was feart, I let loose a couple of "Yee-Haaas!" before being lowered into the waiting jet-boat and ferried back to shore where my new friends were waiting to give me a high-five. Then it was back to town for the obligatory souvenir T-shirts and a look at the video. By golly, I looked graceful.
If ever I should run into a lady from the island of Vanuatu, I’ll bet she’ll be well impressed.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Those who can't....
A friend of mine in the pipe band is a school teacher by trade and at a recent performance was more than a little embarrassed to see one of his students in the audience. She and her mother both waved vigorously and shouted hello as we passed so we all got a lot of mileage out of hearing him called “Mister”.
"What do they call you behind your back" I asked, to which he responded "Nothing, they don’t have a nickname for me". Which, I thought, displayed a rather touching naïveté on his part. He may not know what it is, but it’s almost certain they have a nickname for him. School kids are like that.
When I was eleven and preparing to enter the "Big School", my mother cautioned me about the husband of one of her acquaintances who had been teaching there since the school opened in the 17th Century.
"You’d best be careful," she warned "the boys call him ‘The Rock’, because he’s so tough". Well, maybe in his dreams they did. During my career I never heard him called anything but ‘Bill’, that being his name. And once you got past his pseudo gruff demeanor, he was one of the biggest softies on the block.
He was in fact, one of the better teachers at my school. With a remarkably small number of exceptions we were blessed with a ragtag crew of psychopaths, nutcases and other assorted incompetents. Fortunately, several opted for retirement before I left the school and when it went co-ed a couple of years later, the school-board used the opportunity to decontaminate the place of several more.
Presiding over the bunch was ‘Slimy’ the head-master, an oily little creep of a man who glided rather than walked and was blessed with the skill of always appearing at the most inopportune moments. During the first drag on a shared cigarette, or moments before a smaller boy was separated from his lunch money for example. In later life I spoke to people who’d known him years before, as a junior teacher and he’d been known as ‘Slimy’ then too, so I imagine it was ingrained.
The assistant head, ‘Zan’, was a giant monolith of a man. Picture an Easter Island statue brought to life, although not totally. His style of teaching was to set some tedious assignment, before settling down to read from one of the huge books he habitually carried under his arm. Someone once snuck up on him and saw, buried in the pages of the gargantuan tome, an Ian Fleming paperback.
‘Taffy’ hailed from the valleys of Wales and was inevitably, if unimaginatively saddled with the traditional moniker of his countrymen. The story was that he’d had a lung shot out while serving as a rear gunner on a WW2 bombing run over Germany. That may have been true but it didn’t prevent him from inhaling some three packs of cigarettes a day, causing the nicotine stains to reach up his hands beyond his shirt cuffs. Theoretically Taffy was a Latin teacher although it only took a few minutes for each class to degenerate into a shouting match as he ejected one pupil after another for blatant insubordination. The record was 19 out of a class of 32 in one half hour lesson.
There was ‘Geoff’, a 6’ 6” Yorkshireman who taught mathematics to finance his true love of mountaineering. He was actually pretty good (at the latter) and had taken part in a number of high level expeditions. We loved his lessons for the simple fact it was easy to get him off the subject and onto something more interesting.
“What would you say is the average angle of the North Face of Everest Sir?” we would ask innocently and in moments he would be off on a rambling tale of his climbing exploits.
Then there was ‘Fred’, who was of the old school in every sense; in that he had once been a pupil there himself. He had strong views on how teenage boys should deport themselves and rarely got around to teaching French, his chosen subject busy as he was, lecturing us on how we should dress when out of school uniform; doff imaginary caps when meeting a teacher in the street, that sort of thing. Fred had a pathological hatred of boys whistling, a remnant we were told, of a day many years before when the class had locked him in a cupboard and whistled loudly to cover the noise of him banging on the door.
And who could forget ‘Trevor’, a beloved art teacher who had to retire at a relatively young age after succumbing to crippling arthritis. Trevor took his own life some years later, choosing a rubber hose and a monoxide filled car rather than the daily agony which drugs couldn’t touch.
He wasn’t the only teacher of mine to choose suicide as an escape. ‘Short Mort’ the chemistry teacher, also went that route although it has to be said, few mourned his passing with the same intensity. We knew Mort was married but used to joke that he and his wife had a communal pool of clothes and whoever got out of bed first, had the choice. Nothing else could explain the button-on-the-left ‘shirts’, pants with no fly but a zipper at the side and suede shoes with tassels. And if this left you in any doubt as to his orientation, there was also his blue rinse hair, which wasn’t common on middle aged men in the 1970’s. Not in our small town it wasn’t.
There were others of course, too many to mention. ‘Lenny’, who’s hairpiece would slide backwards on his head as he wrote on the chalkboard; ‘Ma’ Mitchell who looked like Freddy Mercury in drag; ‘Stormy’ Whitehead, who was deaf as a post and a whole herd of history (alliteration) teachers who seldom lasted more than a term. I wonder where they all are now. Well no I don’t. I don’t really care.
Although there is an exception. One of the biggest regrets of my life is that before immigrating to the US, I should have made more of an effort to track down a certain Mr. Starkey, who taught at my junior school. What a nasty little sadist that guy was. If ever we should meet again Mr. Starkey, there’s a head butt with your name on it. You know why.
Schooldays are the happiest days of our lives, or so we’re told. The day I walked out of my school for the last time, I made the vow “Those are not going to be the happiest days of my life!”
And I’m pleased to say, they haven’t been.
"What do they call you behind your back" I asked, to which he responded "Nothing, they don’t have a nickname for me". Which, I thought, displayed a rather touching naïveté on his part. He may not know what it is, but it’s almost certain they have a nickname for him. School kids are like that.
When I was eleven and preparing to enter the "Big School", my mother cautioned me about the husband of one of her acquaintances who had been teaching there since the school opened in the 17th Century.
"You’d best be careful," she warned "the boys call him ‘The Rock’, because he’s so tough". Well, maybe in his dreams they did. During my career I never heard him called anything but ‘Bill’, that being his name. And once you got past his pseudo gruff demeanor, he was one of the biggest softies on the block.
He was in fact, one of the better teachers at my school. With a remarkably small number of exceptions we were blessed with a ragtag crew of psychopaths, nutcases and other assorted incompetents. Fortunately, several opted for retirement before I left the school and when it went co-ed a couple of years later, the school-board used the opportunity to decontaminate the place of several more.
Presiding over the bunch was ‘Slimy’ the head-master, an oily little creep of a man who glided rather than walked and was blessed with the skill of always appearing at the most inopportune moments. During the first drag on a shared cigarette, or moments before a smaller boy was separated from his lunch money for example. In later life I spoke to people who’d known him years before, as a junior teacher and he’d been known as ‘Slimy’ then too, so I imagine it was ingrained.
The assistant head, ‘Zan’, was a giant monolith of a man. Picture an Easter Island statue brought to life, although not totally. His style of teaching was to set some tedious assignment, before settling down to read from one of the huge books he habitually carried under his arm. Someone once snuck up on him and saw, buried in the pages of the gargantuan tome, an Ian Fleming paperback.
‘Taffy’ hailed from the valleys of Wales and was inevitably, if unimaginatively saddled with the traditional moniker of his countrymen. The story was that he’d had a lung shot out while serving as a rear gunner on a WW2 bombing run over Germany. That may have been true but it didn’t prevent him from inhaling some three packs of cigarettes a day, causing the nicotine stains to reach up his hands beyond his shirt cuffs. Theoretically Taffy was a Latin teacher although it only took a few minutes for each class to degenerate into a shouting match as he ejected one pupil after another for blatant insubordination. The record was 19 out of a class of 32 in one half hour lesson.
There was ‘Geoff’, a 6’ 6” Yorkshireman who taught mathematics to finance his true love of mountaineering. He was actually pretty good (at the latter) and had taken part in a number of high level expeditions. We loved his lessons for the simple fact it was easy to get him off the subject and onto something more interesting.
“What would you say is the average angle of the North Face of Everest Sir?” we would ask innocently and in moments he would be off on a rambling tale of his climbing exploits.
Then there was ‘Fred’, who was of the old school in every sense; in that he had once been a pupil there himself. He had strong views on how teenage boys should deport themselves and rarely got around to teaching French, his chosen subject busy as he was, lecturing us on how we should dress when out of school uniform; doff imaginary caps when meeting a teacher in the street, that sort of thing. Fred had a pathological hatred of boys whistling, a remnant we were told, of a day many years before when the class had locked him in a cupboard and whistled loudly to cover the noise of him banging on the door.
And who could forget ‘Trevor’, a beloved art teacher who had to retire at a relatively young age after succumbing to crippling arthritis. Trevor took his own life some years later, choosing a rubber hose and a monoxide filled car rather than the daily agony which drugs couldn’t touch.
He wasn’t the only teacher of mine to choose suicide as an escape. ‘Short Mort’ the chemistry teacher, also went that route although it has to be said, few mourned his passing with the same intensity. We knew Mort was married but used to joke that he and his wife had a communal pool of clothes and whoever got out of bed first, had the choice. Nothing else could explain the button-on-the-left ‘shirts’, pants with no fly but a zipper at the side and suede shoes with tassels. And if this left you in any doubt as to his orientation, there was also his blue rinse hair, which wasn’t common on middle aged men in the 1970’s. Not in our small town it wasn’t.
There were others of course, too many to mention. ‘Lenny’, who’s hairpiece would slide backwards on his head as he wrote on the chalkboard; ‘Ma’ Mitchell who looked like Freddy Mercury in drag; ‘Stormy’ Whitehead, who was deaf as a post and a whole herd of history (alliteration) teachers who seldom lasted more than a term. I wonder where they all are now. Well no I don’t. I don’t really care.
Although there is an exception. One of the biggest regrets of my life is that before immigrating to the US, I should have made more of an effort to track down a certain Mr. Starkey, who taught at my junior school. What a nasty little sadist that guy was. If ever we should meet again Mr. Starkey, there’s a head butt with your name on it. You know why.
Schooldays are the happiest days of our lives, or so we’re told. The day I walked out of my school for the last time, I made the vow “Those are not going to be the happiest days of my life!”
And I’m pleased to say, they haven’t been.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Snow Day
They said there was a storm coming. Over and over again they said it. On the television, the radio, online, everywhere. A big storm’s coming; you better get ready.
Except they’ve said that before, hundreds of times. And they’ve always been wrong. Well, not always – there was the blizzard of ’03 which buried parts of the foothills under 12-15 feet of snow; they did predict that correctly. But all the other chicken-little warnings either haven’t come to pass at all or have been a fraction of what we were told to expect. As a veteran of 3 ½ Colorado winters I’ve come to learn that when the weather service says “Expect a foot of snow”, we can anticipate an inch or so.
To be fair, our house is located in an area which seems to be remarkably well protected from the brunt of Colorado’s winter storms. Known locally as “The Banana Belt” we’re sheltered by the mass of Mt Evans which means the nasty stuff tends to blow right around us. Quite often the worst driving conditions of my commute don’t happen until I’ve dropped a good thousand feet or so towards the plains. Many of Colorado’s world-famous ski resorts are approximately the same height as our house yet they receive five or ten times the amount of snow. But even so, the weather predictions have a tendency to be almost comically unrealistic.
The “big storm” was supposed to hit us on Saturday night so it was with a weary cynicism I headed for bed after noting an almost immeasurable amount of snow on the deck. Up at 5am to accommodate the world’s most irritating dog who’d refused the opportunity to pee at bedtime and still there was virtually no snow.
“Useless b******s,” I grumbled. (I grumble a lot in the mornings) “I wish I had a job where I could be wrong about absolutely everything and not get fired.”
Pre-coffee grumpiness aside, I was really quite pleased. You see I was leaving for a conference later that morning and as the airport is a good 70 miles away, I didn’t fancy having to battle the elements all the way there. Back to bed with a clear conscience and another couple of hours between the warm sheets. 7 a.m., the alarm went off and I hopped semi-cheerfully out of bed only to discover the long-awaited storm had finally got started. Oh boy; had it started.
There was still only 3 or 4 inches on the ground but it was coming down thick and fast so I decided that although my flight would almost certainly be delayed, it still made sense to set out for the airport sooner rather than later. Of course, it never entered my head the flight would be cancelled altogether so I learned about that from the radio when I was only a couple of miles from the house. I’d to drive another mile before finding a place safe enough to turn around and giving thanks once again for 4-wheel drive, pointed Angus homewards.
Like a kazillion other people due to fly from Denver, I had to call the airline to find out what they had in mind for the rest of my day. I expected to be on hold for an hour or more so when a pleasant voice came on the line after about five minutes, it caught me completely off guard and with a mouthful of toast. Yes, the flight was cancelled but not to worry, there was room on a later flight scheduled for the evening, presumably by which time, somebody would have shoveled the runways clear and jump-started the planes.
Which left me with almost a full day to kill. Me, who never has enough time to do the things I have to do, much less the things I want to do. Me, who has a dozen projects to start “whenever I get some free time, even just a few hours would do”. A whole Sunday with nothing planned, nowhere to go, no chores to do.
And I couldn’t get motivated to do anything.
I’m not sure what the psychology of all this was but it seemed my head was already in travel mode and my brain wasn’t ready to do anything else. My exercise gear stayed in the bag. The pile of photographs didn’t make it into the new album. My drumsticks stayed in the daypack along with my practice pad. And the bills stayed unpaid. Oh, I did allow nutso-dog to drag me around the neighborhood for an hour or so, but most of the day was spent mooning around the house or standing at the window, listlessly watching the snow come down.
When the airline left a message to say my new flight had been cancelled too, it came as no big surprise. Nor was it any great shock that it took a whole lot longer to get through to the reservation center this time. I took this in my stride and calmly accepted my fate. I didn’t get bad tempered until I accidentally pressed the phone too close to my face while holding it wedged in my shoulder, and disconnected myself after being on hold for 26 minutes.
Then I got really bad tempered some 35 minutes later when I finally got through and found myself conversing with an infuriatingly chirpy automated robot. I’m not sure if the deficiency was on my side or his but the conversation broke down when he asked me for my confirmation number and was then unable to understand my response. So he asked for it again. And again. And again.
I learned a couple of things during this exchange. One is that regardless of how many obscenities you scream at United Airline’s telephone robot, and no matter the volume, it will still respond with “I’m sorry, I’m unable to find that confirmation number. Could you please give it to me again?” The second is that Dear Wife is probably right when she says I should go back to the doctor’s to have my blood pressure re-checked.
The conference was at a ski resort high above Lake Tahoe with a breathtaking setting in one of the world’s most beautiful valleys. But I’m afraid I barely saw the view as it was the middle of the night when I finally arrived. I spent the following day blearily participating in what was left of the conference, and before I knew it, it was time to go home. I’m told it was very nice though. And they had more snow that we got.
Would it have been too much to ask for my flight to have been cancelled in this direction?
Except they’ve said that before, hundreds of times. And they’ve always been wrong. Well, not always – there was the blizzard of ’03 which buried parts of the foothills under 12-15 feet of snow; they did predict that correctly. But all the other chicken-little warnings either haven’t come to pass at all or have been a fraction of what we were told to expect. As a veteran of 3 ½ Colorado winters I’ve come to learn that when the weather service says “Expect a foot of snow”, we can anticipate an inch or so.
To be fair, our house is located in an area which seems to be remarkably well protected from the brunt of Colorado’s winter storms. Known locally as “The Banana Belt” we’re sheltered by the mass of Mt Evans which means the nasty stuff tends to blow right around us. Quite often the worst driving conditions of my commute don’t happen until I’ve dropped a good thousand feet or so towards the plains. Many of Colorado’s world-famous ski resorts are approximately the same height as our house yet they receive five or ten times the amount of snow. But even so, the weather predictions have a tendency to be almost comically unrealistic.
The “big storm” was supposed to hit us on Saturday night so it was with a weary cynicism I headed for bed after noting an almost immeasurable amount of snow on the deck. Up at 5am to accommodate the world’s most irritating dog who’d refused the opportunity to pee at bedtime and still there was virtually no snow.
“Useless b******s,” I grumbled. (I grumble a lot in the mornings) “I wish I had a job where I could be wrong about absolutely everything and not get fired.”
Pre-coffee grumpiness aside, I was really quite pleased. You see I was leaving for a conference later that morning and as the airport is a good 70 miles away, I didn’t fancy having to battle the elements all the way there. Back to bed with a clear conscience and another couple of hours between the warm sheets. 7 a.m., the alarm went off and I hopped semi-cheerfully out of bed only to discover the long-awaited storm had finally got started. Oh boy; had it started.
There was still only 3 or 4 inches on the ground but it was coming down thick and fast so I decided that although my flight would almost certainly be delayed, it still made sense to set out for the airport sooner rather than later. Of course, it never entered my head the flight would be cancelled altogether so I learned about that from the radio when I was only a couple of miles from the house. I’d to drive another mile before finding a place safe enough to turn around and giving thanks once again for 4-wheel drive, pointed Angus homewards.
Like a kazillion other people due to fly from Denver, I had to call the airline to find out what they had in mind for the rest of my day. I expected to be on hold for an hour or more so when a pleasant voice came on the line after about five minutes, it caught me completely off guard and with a mouthful of toast. Yes, the flight was cancelled but not to worry, there was room on a later flight scheduled for the evening, presumably by which time, somebody would have shoveled the runways clear and jump-started the planes.
Which left me with almost a full day to kill. Me, who never has enough time to do the things I have to do, much less the things I want to do. Me, who has a dozen projects to start “whenever I get some free time, even just a few hours would do”. A whole Sunday with nothing planned, nowhere to go, no chores to do.
And I couldn’t get motivated to do anything.
I’m not sure what the psychology of all this was but it seemed my head was already in travel mode and my brain wasn’t ready to do anything else. My exercise gear stayed in the bag. The pile of photographs didn’t make it into the new album. My drumsticks stayed in the daypack along with my practice pad. And the bills stayed unpaid. Oh, I did allow nutso-dog to drag me around the neighborhood for an hour or so, but most of the day was spent mooning around the house or standing at the window, listlessly watching the snow come down.
When the airline left a message to say my new flight had been cancelled too, it came as no big surprise. Nor was it any great shock that it took a whole lot longer to get through to the reservation center this time. I took this in my stride and calmly accepted my fate. I didn’t get bad tempered until I accidentally pressed the phone too close to my face while holding it wedged in my shoulder, and disconnected myself after being on hold for 26 minutes.
Then I got really bad tempered some 35 minutes later when I finally got through and found myself conversing with an infuriatingly chirpy automated robot. I’m not sure if the deficiency was on my side or his but the conversation broke down when he asked me for my confirmation number and was then unable to understand my response. So he asked for it again. And again. And again.
I learned a couple of things during this exchange. One is that regardless of how many obscenities you scream at United Airline’s telephone robot, and no matter the volume, it will still respond with “I’m sorry, I’m unable to find that confirmation number. Could you please give it to me again?” The second is that Dear Wife is probably right when she says I should go back to the doctor’s to have my blood pressure re-checked.
The conference was at a ski resort high above Lake Tahoe with a breathtaking setting in one of the world’s most beautiful valleys. But I’m afraid I barely saw the view as it was the middle of the night when I finally arrived. I spent the following day blearily participating in what was left of the conference, and before I knew it, it was time to go home. I’m told it was very nice though. And they had more snow that we got.
Would it have been too much to ask for my flight to have been cancelled in this direction?
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Pick a card - any card
I lost my bus pass this week. No, I’m not a senior citizen, although I feel like it some days, but it’s not that kind of bus pass. Instead it’s a handy little card called an Eco-Pass, provided by Denver’s public transport company and heavily subsidized by my employer. It allows me to travel anywhere on the public transport system, bus or train and living as I do, almost 50 miles from my office, I take advantage of it every day I can. Not only do I save on gas, and wear and tear on Angus, I can avoid paying downtown Denver’s exorbitant parking charges. It’s a wonderful thing. Except when it magically disappears from my wallet as I found it had done on Thursday morning.
I was pretty sure I knew how I’d come to lose it. The previous Tuesday, which was the last day I’d ridden the bus, disembarking had been something of a challenge due to the incredibly slow elderly lady in front of me and the fact that I was trying to take a cell phone call whilst juggling my coat and backpack in the other hand and the Eco-pass in my third. This is probably why my phone ended up bouncing down the steps of the bus and ejecting its battery into the snow. Somewhere in the kafuffle my pass vanished.
Hoping I’d simply put the card in my shirt pocket, as I’ve done before, I called Dear Wife and asked that she check the laundry basket for the shirt I’d been wearing. No pass. How about the jacket? Nope, not there either. Lost and Found once more came up blank (See Dress for Success) so lunchtime found me at the transport company office going through the ordeal of obtaining a replacement. You would think for the $25 replacement fee they would have given me one with a better looking photo on it.
Historically, I haven’t had good luck with cards. When I set out on my 2-year quest to become a full time hippie, I took all the usual steps. Quit my job, sold my apartment, renounced all worldly possessions and ordered myself a credit card. After all, I had to have some way to access the several thousand dollars sitting in my bank account. On hindsight, it would have been better for me to have ordered two credit cards, so I would have been able to eat during the times when the first one went missing.
The first occasion was only a couple of months into my trip. I’d found myself the sole resident of a rather cheerless backpacker’s hostel in Ballarat, Australia and anxious to preserve my funds, was spending a lonely night in my room. To pass the time I spring cleaned my bag and cleared out a bunch of receipts, tourist leaflets, old maps and the like. Oh, and my credit card. I chucked that in the bin too although I didn’t notice until almost a week later when I next went to draw some cash.
The girl at the bank was very sympathetic but there was little she could do to help so I found myself backtracking to Melbourne, the nearest big city where Visa had a base. Ten days for a replacement so all I had to do was survive until then on the $12.50 I had in my pocket. I achieved this by mooching off friends; living on their couch, eating their food and making myself as accommodating as possible by cleaning the house, running errands and the like. They were good people but I don’t think any of us were sorry when the big day finally arrived and I set out to Visa’s office bright and early, ready to pick up my new card and be on my way.
They had mislaid my paperwork and had never processed the application.
My British accent was still pretty strong in those days and it’s possible they didn’t catch all the words I used but I think I got my point across. Even so, it was another ten days before I finally received a shiny new Visa card and could set off on my trails once more. On hindsight, I could simply have called my folks and have them wire money out but I was still young and naïve back then and didn’t want them to know I’d screwed up so early on my travels.
I had no such compunction the next time, over a year later when I lost my credit card again. By now I’d suffered through two more bouts of being unable to access my stash after maxing out my (pitifully inadequate) credit limit on plane tickets and having to wait a week or so until my bank back home settled the monthly bill. On both of those occasions I’d carelessly dipped into my “emergency” fund and on the latter had found myself with only $3 to my name. I threw myself on the mercy of the hostel manager and begged a week’s board on credit, then blew the lot on a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter – my only food for the next six days. On day two, someone stole the peanut butter.
So when my card once more mysteriously disappeared in Phoenix, Arizona; I didn’t think twice about calling home collect and giving my dear old Dad detailed instructions on how International Money Transfers worked. If I’d thought obtaining a replacement card in Australia had been frustrating, it was nothing to the drama I went through trying to get one in Arizona. However, as that episode led (albeit somewhat circuitously) to me becoming a permanent resident of the USA, I think it merits a Gunsmoke File of its own someday. Suffice to say, the day after I reported it lost, my card turned up safe and sound, but due to the lock on the account, totally unusable.
I had reason to reflect on this sad tale while I was dressing for work on Monday morning. The clocks went forward this weekend so the first day of the week found me even groggier than usual as I hauled on my clothes in the darkness. Underwear successfully negotiated, on with the shirt, then the pants. I hadn’t even finished zipping up the fly when I felt a mysterious scratching on my hip. I checked the pocket and a second or two later was staring in befuddlement at a perfectly serviceable, but completely useless Eco Pass. It hadn’t occurred to me to have Dear Wife check my trouser pockets.
So...anyone want to buy an almost new Eco Pass, valid through the end of this year?
Hey c’mon! It’s not as though the picture even looks like me!
I was pretty sure I knew how I’d come to lose it. The previous Tuesday, which was the last day I’d ridden the bus, disembarking had been something of a challenge due to the incredibly slow elderly lady in front of me and the fact that I was trying to take a cell phone call whilst juggling my coat and backpack in the other hand and the Eco-pass in my third. This is probably why my phone ended up bouncing down the steps of the bus and ejecting its battery into the snow. Somewhere in the kafuffle my pass vanished.
Hoping I’d simply put the card in my shirt pocket, as I’ve done before, I called Dear Wife and asked that she check the laundry basket for the shirt I’d been wearing. No pass. How about the jacket? Nope, not there either. Lost and Found once more came up blank (See Dress for Success) so lunchtime found me at the transport company office going through the ordeal of obtaining a replacement. You would think for the $25 replacement fee they would have given me one with a better looking photo on it.
Historically, I haven’t had good luck with cards. When I set out on my 2-year quest to become a full time hippie, I took all the usual steps. Quit my job, sold my apartment, renounced all worldly possessions and ordered myself a credit card. After all, I had to have some way to access the several thousand dollars sitting in my bank account. On hindsight, it would have been better for me to have ordered two credit cards, so I would have been able to eat during the times when the first one went missing.
The first occasion was only a couple of months into my trip. I’d found myself the sole resident of a rather cheerless backpacker’s hostel in Ballarat, Australia and anxious to preserve my funds, was spending a lonely night in my room. To pass the time I spring cleaned my bag and cleared out a bunch of receipts, tourist leaflets, old maps and the like. Oh, and my credit card. I chucked that in the bin too although I didn’t notice until almost a week later when I next went to draw some cash.
The girl at the bank was very sympathetic but there was little she could do to help so I found myself backtracking to Melbourne, the nearest big city where Visa had a base. Ten days for a replacement so all I had to do was survive until then on the $12.50 I had in my pocket. I achieved this by mooching off friends; living on their couch, eating their food and making myself as accommodating as possible by cleaning the house, running errands and the like. They were good people but I don’t think any of us were sorry when the big day finally arrived and I set out to Visa’s office bright and early, ready to pick up my new card and be on my way.
They had mislaid my paperwork and had never processed the application.
My British accent was still pretty strong in those days and it’s possible they didn’t catch all the words I used but I think I got my point across. Even so, it was another ten days before I finally received a shiny new Visa card and could set off on my trails once more. On hindsight, I could simply have called my folks and have them wire money out but I was still young and naïve back then and didn’t want them to know I’d screwed up so early on my travels.
I had no such compunction the next time, over a year later when I lost my credit card again. By now I’d suffered through two more bouts of being unable to access my stash after maxing out my (pitifully inadequate) credit limit on plane tickets and having to wait a week or so until my bank back home settled the monthly bill. On both of those occasions I’d carelessly dipped into my “emergency” fund and on the latter had found myself with only $3 to my name. I threw myself on the mercy of the hostel manager and begged a week’s board on credit, then blew the lot on a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter – my only food for the next six days. On day two, someone stole the peanut butter.
So when my card once more mysteriously disappeared in Phoenix, Arizona; I didn’t think twice about calling home collect and giving my dear old Dad detailed instructions on how International Money Transfers worked. If I’d thought obtaining a replacement card in Australia had been frustrating, it was nothing to the drama I went through trying to get one in Arizona. However, as that episode led (albeit somewhat circuitously) to me becoming a permanent resident of the USA, I think it merits a Gunsmoke File of its own someday. Suffice to say, the day after I reported it lost, my card turned up safe and sound, but due to the lock on the account, totally unusable.
I had reason to reflect on this sad tale while I was dressing for work on Monday morning. The clocks went forward this weekend so the first day of the week found me even groggier than usual as I hauled on my clothes in the darkness. Underwear successfully negotiated, on with the shirt, then the pants. I hadn’t even finished zipping up the fly when I felt a mysterious scratching on my hip. I checked the pocket and a second or two later was staring in befuddlement at a perfectly serviceable, but completely useless Eco Pass. It hadn’t occurred to me to have Dear Wife check my trouser pockets.
So...anyone want to buy an almost new Eco Pass, valid through the end of this year?
Hey c’mon! It’s not as though the picture even looks like me!
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