The Mis-adventures of the committed.who.should.have.stayed.in.exile
It was November 2005 and life was pretty damn good.
I had just come up with a pretty cool idea for a Christmas Present for myself and the wife (bless her) and just given it the big thumbs up, and if that wasnt big enough. The wife (bless her) then called my mother and she offered to help out with the costs.
What was the present?
Glad you asked; Air Fares to Perth and ticket to the first Western Force game versus the Brumbies on February 10, 2006.
So why is this Article titled “The Mis-adventures of the committed.who.should.have.stayed.in.exile”?
Well, to answer that question you are going to need some background information, so bare with me a minute or two OK.
The Friday before Christmas I received a call from my Landlord telling me, Mrs TCIE and the little Exile had until the 25 Jan 2006 to vacate the house as it had been sold. As we were in the process of trying to buy our own place, we had to move in with the mother-in-law. To make matters worse to save money I was doing all of the moving, by myself.
Here is where the problems started. When I packed everything up, I carefully packed away my Tickets to Subiaco Oval that would enable me to view the first ever Western Force Super 14 Game. I packed them so carefully I still haven’t found them. My other problem was I didn’t realise I actually needed the tickets until the day of my flight to Perth at 7.15am as I was walking out the door with bags in hand to drive to my Brother-in-laws house for him to drive me to Sydney Airport.
As I stormed back inside the house saying words like Damn and Gosh and Golly and Darn it I pulled apart my worldly possessions in a frantic attempt to find the tickets waking up the wife in process who then was kind enough to offer advice like “where did you put them” Is she kidding??? If I knew that would I be dumping boxes of junk on her legs?
After 10 minutes of frantic searching and failing to locate the reason for my travelling to Perth, I said Damn it and jumped in the car and drove around the corner to collect my Brother-in-law and commence the approx 75km journey to Sydney Airport. Sounds pretty easy don’t it? For a normal person on any normal day it would. But not for this little duck on the 9th February 2006. Oh hell no.
The journey started off just fine, we were making good time, talking cr*p as we went, cracking jokes and generally having a good time until we got to the M5.
For those of you who don’t know Sydney Roadways the M5 take traffic from the South West of Sydney to virtually the front drive way for Sydney Airport, for the honour and privilege of driving on this road it costs each motorist $3.30 for each speedy journey of up to 110km/h.
Did I say 110km/h???? Not this day, Not when I had to be at the Airport for a 9.30am check-in. Average speed for me on this trip was about 20 – 40 km/h. I was planning to arrive at the airport at 9am to allow me plenty of time. Does anyone want to guess what time I got to the Airport?
Try 9.50am. And no begging, pleading or laying on the famous TCIE charm would get me on my flight. The smiling and friendly staff of Virgin Blue then booked me on the next flight for the lowly cost of $50. This is pretty impressive considering I could have been charged $400+.
I might leave part one there. If you like to read more of my little adventure let me know……………….
