Don't just hate it when you make a tiny tiny mistake in the beginning of the day and slowly that mistake causes some crazy domino effect as the day progresses? You know when the next mistake becomes bigger than the next? Yours truly was involved in such a day and all for a stupid piece of paper. Which I still didn't get.
Starts at 5 am and getting ready to head to the bus station to go to the airport. A couple of seconds out of the door and I realized that I forgot my passport. No biggie, just went back in and get it out. I was aiming to reach the station in time for the 6:10 bus. But thanks to my slight lapse of forgetfulness, I missed the 6:10 bus by 10 SECONDS! No matter, the next bus at 6:20 is the latest I can take and still make it to the airport on time but with little breathing space. Took the 6:20 bus and 10 minutes into the trip I realized that I don't recognize the roads anymore. Shrug it off that maybe they had a newer, more reliable route or that it was still dark and I actually am on the right road. At the 20 minute mark when we should have seen the airport at least, there was nothing but dark flat lands with many many roundabouts. At this point I started to get worried. We finally reached the airport at 7:05 but my flight was in 10 minutes. It was only then did the bus driver announced to all of us that he had taken a longer route because there was an accident on the usual route and traffic had been piling up. Wow. He could have told us earlier instead of having my heart racing for more than half the journey. Ran to the counter and asked if I could still go in (I had no luggage to check in so this shouldn't be too bad if they let me). They radioed the people at the gate and said that the gate had just closed and the plane left the gate. So close. So I had to go and change my flight which another $50 went out of my wallet.
Not to matter because the next flight out was in an hour and can technically still make it for my appointment at the Malaysian High Commission to get a police clearance certificate. Waited there until the appointed time when it was mentioned that the flight was delayed. Still alright although the absence of an aircraft at the gate was a bit sus. 20 minutes later, we got the shocking news...the flight was CANCELLED!!! They can reschedule all our flights to one that is in 2.5 hours from then or have it cancelled and get credit. I had mine rescheduled but I need to see if I can move my appointment to a later time that day but I had to wait for about half an hour because the High Commission hasn't opened yet.
Now the High Commission call was another thing altogether. At this point I was very very annoyed about everything that happened in the past 3 hours and I dreaded calling the High Commission to reschedule. A little context here: I called them a week ago to have my appointment to come and see them and I was put through to this lady who clearly would like to receive no calls at all if at all it were possible. And based on her response and what I can hear through the telephone, it seems that the appointment management system is very archaic, a book and a pencil. And she sounds very irritated at the very least. Every appointment time I suggested, she responds with a oh-no-you-didn't-sounding "NOOoooo" (And I can probably imagine her doing this, except a much older lady who doesn't care about anything than to get back home). After 3 times, only then did she suggest a time slot but not before hearing her flipping pages on a book. After taking my contact details, she ends the phone call abruptly with a very Napoleon Dynamite "K bai!" (Now that I think of it, I think she is like the Malaysian female version of Napoleon. That would explain a lot.). And that was the first call. The second call was to change to another day for convenience. She asked me why I wanted to change the appointment time of which I should have retorted it is none of her business. But, being the very passive me, I just said it was at a better time for me. She released a huge sigh and proceeded in the same way as the first phone call, with the oh-no-you-didn't routine.
So I called the High Commission praying very hard that I will get a different person on the other line, possibly someone nicer like the lady who transferred my call to this department. Alas, Murphy tapped on my shoulder and there she was on the other line. I recognized that absence of all things good in the world and lack of enthusiasm in her tone anywhere. So I told her my situation and asked if it were possible to shift the appointment to later during the day because I can still make it with the rescheduled flight. Again, she gave the oh-no-you-didn't "No." and said something that I can't remember exactly but had something to do with it being the month of Ramadhan. Really?? The new time was to be just after noon and your reason for declining my suggestion is it is because it is Ramadhan?? You could have just said that the day is full and I would have been fine with that. At this point she said that there will only be available time slots in a month's time when Ramadhan is over. My blood was about to erupt from my skin until I hear pages flipping again and said that she can put me in next week Tuesday. What the hell was all of that talk about? (If it weren't for the fact that I am utterly incapable of dropping F-bombs, I would have dropped it there) So I took the slot, she took down my details and ended the conversation with the same "K bai!".
This made me so furious I had to take some time to calm down before I lash it on the next person who was to be the airline staff that is going to cancel my flight and issue me credit. And she was sick so I don't think she needs any more rubbish from people and certainly not from me. She was nice and had her work cut out from all the reissuing of boarding passes so I kept apologizing profusely for the trouble caused. She just reissued my boarding pass and changed my flight on the return flight and now she has to cancel all of that and reissue me credit. I felt seriously bad about it. My breakfast at the airport was sponsored by the airlines and headed back to the city on a very very gloomy day. And not even half the day has passed.
Thankfully that was the last of the frustrations for the day. Met up with a friend, accompanied my friend to run some errands which ended really smoothly, had awesome mini cupcakes and a really good pot of chamomile tea, awesome cheap sushi with white miso soup, a stroll around Costco and later a movie. I think my body couldn't keep up with the rubbish I had today that I crashed soon after for 12 hours at least.
Let's just hope that this day will not repeat itself when I go back there the next week to get that police clearance again. I don't think I can take another day of this again.
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