Thursday, March 28, 2013

Two Stories-- Busted & Lost and Found

I'm currently headed out to "Adult Spring Break"--- aka celebrating the fact that Australia gives Good Friday and Easter Monday off and headed up to the beach with some friends. I've never gotten a single day off for Easter so this is really exciting!

Thought I'd share two stories from yesterday:

Busted

It's no surprise for me to say that Australia is super expensive at this point. But sometimes I just feel like businesses are trying to rip me off.

Take the gym: 3 times the cost of Gold's Gym at home AND there are no towels. In order to get a towel you have to pay $3 a visit---you can get a "towel card" in case you rock up and don't have $3 with you, and the nice folks at the front desk will hold your card until you bring back the towel at the end of your session. Kind of like insurance that you won't walk off with the towel.

Seeing as I'm headed to the beach and we have to bring our own linens, though, I had what I thought was a master plan when I headed to the gym yesterday morning. "I'll pay CASH," I thought, "and then I'll be able to borrow this towel forever and take it to the beach."

I've never stolen anything before, but surely with the amount of uses that they get out of those gym towels they wouldn't sell for more than $3 on the street anyway.

My mistake was paying with a $10 instead of paying exact change. The front desk must have seen straight through me, because as she handed me my towel she said "I'll give you your change when you bring your towel back."

THWARTED in a big way. I guess I still could have stolen it, but it would have cost me the full $10.

Next time I'll try paying the exact amount. Fitness First, I will establish a collection of your towels.

The next little story could have really put a damper on this weekend's trip. Spoiler: it didn't.

Lost and Found

I've always wanted a gay best friend. Something about having a gay best friend just seems really really cool, and really handy for gossiping about work, fashion choices etc. I'm lucky that in Sydney I've got two gay best friends-- my colleague Ryan and his partner Ceph.

Ryan's got a flair for the drama at times, which is part of the reason why it's so much fun to hang around him.

Last night after work, the three of us piled into the super economy car that we've hired for the weekend (ie, the most Ceph would agree to help pay for) and started making the rounds: Aldi, Cole's and finally the mecca of liquor stores, Dan Murphy's.

The car was already fairly packed by the time we picked up booze, and with rain pouring down as we wheeled out our purchases I instructed the boys to pack the car and then come back around to pick me up.

Minutes pass by and I begin to wonder what in the world is going on. Glancing up from my phone, I see Ryan grandly gesticulating with his arms. Uh-oh, I thought, there's an argument brewing. But it was worse than I thought. With a shriek, Ryan turned to me and yelled "he's lost the keys! he's lost the keys!"

I groaned, knowing that this meant I had to walk out in the rain to search for the car keys that had just magically disappeared after opening the door.

It's funny to see these two operate-- both getting more anxious and dramatic by the moment-- going through all of the shopping bags, searching the floor and checking under the car.

"What are we going to do?" Ryan wailed after another 15 minutes of searching. "It's a public holiday tomorrow and this is a hired car and now we won't get to go to the beach and it's all your fault Ceph and how did you lose the keys and what are we going to doooooooooooooo?"

"Give me 5 minutes to think," replies Ceph, so we climb back in the car (soaked), Ryan's anger palpable and me stifling giggles in the backseat.

Being the super rational, always levelheaded person that I am, I know we've just missed the keys somewhere and that they are, in fact, somewhere in the car.

"Scoot your seat forward all the way Ryan," I say.

"I've already checked under the seat. The keys are lost forever. We're going to have to cancel the trip. Ceph, how could you? How could you ruin our vacation?"

I interrupt-- "Ok fine, but do it anyway. Scoot forward."

And there, lying perfectly fine under the seat, are our missing keys.

Crisis averted.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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