My flight back from West Africa arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport at 6:30 this morning. Spending a night trying, unsuccessfully, to get some sleep while crammed into an economy-class seat did not allow me to start the day with my normal bright and sunny disposition. OK, that's a total lie: my normal disposition is neither bright nor sunny. I'm a Crab. Rephrase: Spending a night trying, unsuccessfully, to get some sleep while crammed into an economy-class seat did not allow me to don the mask of civility with which I normally attempt to face society.
As my plane was landing, I realized that this was the next-to-last time that I will land in Paris while I still call it home. The next-to-last time that I will be able to get through passport control at a Paris simply by showing my residence card, no passport required.
So I started my day tired and sad and Crabby.
Things are not getting better. When I got home, I:
- immediately checked my e-mail, because my U.S. moving company was supposed to send me the moving contract. Instead I had a message from them saying that their French partner company insists that they can't fit me in on June 23-24, the dates we've agreed on all along, and the other French companies that my U.S. company has contacted want $3000-4000 more to do my move, which would put the total price way over my budget. The U.S. company helpfully told me I should find another moving company of my choice. I must think of a way to thank them for this wonderful advice! Fortunately, I had been waiting to receive the actual contract before notifying the two other potential moving companies that I had chosen another company. This means that technically, I still have two other valid offers outstanding, both of which are from lovely and professional (please God!) French companies, and both of which are in the form of actual contracts which I should be able to just sign. Unfortunately, only one of the two potential contracts is within my budget, and it requires me to pack all my non-fragile belongings myself (the packing of 100% of my belongings was the big advantage of the offer from the stupid U.S. company). I left messages by e-mail and mobile phone with the cheaper French mover, to try to make sure that their offer is still valid for a move date of June 23-24. It most likely will be fine, but I probably won't have a firm answer until Monday (or Tuesday, since I'll be en route to DC all day Monday), and I'm going to be stressed until I have confirmation. This is a major annoyance to be dealt with, and I'm going to have a lot more work to do now, packing stuff. And that makes me Crabby.
- called my friend A to cry on her shoulder about this tragic turn of events. That made me feel a little bit better.
- went to bed for a couple of hours to get some sleep and try to see the world in a better light. Any positive effects from the sleep were erased immediately after, when I
- picked up my mail for the last week and stopped by the building superintendent's apartment to pick up a package. She pointed out (rather snarkily) that I had had a letter returned for insufficient postage, and she'd had to pay 1.05 euros on my behalf. So I went to get her 2 euros to shut her up, and looked at the returned letter. It was the letter I'd sent to the French unemployment office right before my trip, to tell them I couldn't be present for my mandatory appointment on May 26, because I was going to be out of the country. The copies of my consulting work contract and plane ticket, which I attached as proof of my trip, apparently put the letter over the weight limit. So now the French unemployment office may cut off my benefits because I missed a mandatory appointment without proper advance notification. I'll resend them the letter in the "returned" envelope, plus an additional explanation about why they didn't receive the letter beforehand. I'll also try to call them on Monday before I board the plane. Best case scenario, this is yet another administrative annoyance that I have to deal with. Worst case scenario, the lack of a 55 cent stamp just lost me about half my income. That makes me Crabby.
I will tell you a bit about my trip to West Africa later, when I hope that I will no longer be filled with hatred for all of humanity. Right now, I need to go try to find some positive energy somewhere. I'm supposed to get my hair done in 1.5 hours, and I don't want my hairstylist to catch my current bad juju while she's doing my hair. Bad highlights would make me Very Crabby.
P.S. I forgot to tell you about the very worst thing of all! The package I picked up had some French books and CDs and DVDs that I had ordered online. One of the books is the last in a series that I own, so I made sure to order the edition from the same publisher as the rest of the series, so that all the books would match (things matching is something I'm very Particular about). Well, the publisher changed the cover design and the color of the side binding, so my new book does not match the others. Bad moving experiences will eventually be behind me. Bankruptcy, I can recover from. But this unmatched book will be on my shelves forever. Clearly, my life is ruined. Why do bad things always happen to me?! Also, my friends often say I exaggerate, which is obviously an unfair and completely baseless accusation. The whole world is out to get me, there's just no other explanation....
2 comments:
While I am very sorry all the Bad Things happened, it is because of those bad things that we are able to be entertained, and so it's all good.
I find the non-matching books by FAR the most disturbing part of your little vignette. I would seriously consider getting rid of all the books until such time as you can get a complete, matching set. I of course don't know that from any kind of personal experience, because I'm not crazy, but I can see where someone might throw out, say, a perfectly good copy of A Wind in the Door because it doesn't match one's copies of A Wrinkle in Time and I can remember the name of the other one. Anyway. That's just an example.
See, everyone in the world, even my best blog readers, finds humor in my suffering and is just out to get me!
Had The Misfortune of the Mismatched Books occured but one or two years ago, I would have been able to throw the offending tomes away, just as was very rightly done by Scott--er, as Scott described in his FICTITIOUS example--with the Madeleine L'Engle series, with no further thought, other than that it was a worthy sacrifice to the God of All Things Right and Beautiful. But no, my series of books became mismatched NOW, in the Days When We All Must Be Green and are not allowed to throw away anything usable, no matter how aesthetically offensive.
Soon I imagine we'll all be expected to display bits of partially chewed and rotting food on our bookshelves, just to prove that we're Not Wasteful. But I digress.
The point here is that this Bad Thing, which formerly could have been so easily righted, is now irreparable for me, due to unfortunate timing in the change in social mores. Unless . . .
What if I were to donate the vile volumes to a worthy cause, such as a French class in the U.S., which doesn't have affordable access to good source material, and which would then use the books for the social good of Improving Young Minds? Having correctly put my unwanted books to Reuse, I would be free to replace them. Except . . . I'd have to order a new matching set from France, committing not only the cardinal sin of long-distance shipping, rather than local buying, but also again running the unbearable risk of receiving an unmatched set from the online store.
I know! Once I've moved to the Cities, I'll donate the books to a school, then I'll fly back to Paris to buy a new set in person (local buying), and also pay for carbon offsets so that my plane ticket won't count. This solution will be a bit expensive, of course, and it may take me a while to save up enough, now that my salary's been cut in half, but in the end, it'll all be worth it, to have things Match.
Not the least bit crazy, why do you ask?
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