Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Prologue to a Comedy of Errors

I've been reading this blog for a while now, and this post filled me with complete glee.

You see, two years ago, my family was finally leaving for our dream vacation in Europe. Only the thing is, at ten in the night, just as we're about to leave for the airport, we discover my passport is missing. I, of course, promptly went into hysterics (by which I mean, I started giggling and couldn't stop) while the father opened up every piece of luggage that was supposed to go with us (and mind you, my family does not know the meaning of travelling light).

Possible locations for the passport included the photocopy shop I had visited earlier that evening. The father has a penchant for photocopying everything as many times as possible, and for some reason mine was the only one with no copies having been made. So at 2230 hours, the brother and I dash down to the market, where of course, all the shops were closed. Resourceful person that I am, I called up the cell phone that was listed in front of the neighbouring shop, got the photocopy shop's owner's number, and called him up. He, of course, claimed that he had been in the shop at eight when the entire shop had been searched for some person's missing cell phone and no passport had been seen anywhere.

By the time we got home, my dad had searched through pretty much the whole house with no luck. My hysteria was rapidly reaching a peak when, after some discussion, the father announces that the mother and the brother will proceed with the vacation while we shall stay back and see what can be done. I still don't know who was more shocked - me, at the fact that I wasn't going, or the two of them, considering the only thing they knew about the logistics of the entire trip (which I had planned and arranged) was that it would be somewhere in the aforementioned continent.

So anyway, we dropped them to the airport, and spoke to the airlines, who said that two of us could travel later. We came back home, and went to the market again, with a torch this time. So at two in the night, the father and I are searching the market alleys and carpark to see if I had dropped it somewhere by mistake. No such luck, so we came back home and went off to sleep.

I got up at eight in the morning, and the first thing I did was call up the xerox shop, where the chap who picked up the phone very coolly informed me that of course my passport was with them. As I said at the time, may all the Gods shower curses on that owner for being so clueless about what happens in his shop, and zillions of blessings on the chaps who run the shop for keeping my passport safely.

The airline came through as well, and exactly twenty-four hours after the first half of my family, the father and I were on our way to Austria for what was to be the most accident-filled yet best vacation I've had till date. Although I could've done without the big grin and the bright "So it was at the photocopy shop after all, was it?" I got from the airline lady.

And it's not just me who does these things anyway.

1 comment:

R said...

This whole business about new windows for comments is very annoying.

Anyway... yeah, that's why I'm paranoid about travelling meself. Disaster likes me :s