Friday 12 January 2007

Economeenie minie mo

Go to the Jetstar website and you too will see that a 6:00 am flight from Sydney to the 'Bourne is a NOT-TO-BE-SNEEZED-AT (or otherwise defiled-by-mucous) TEN DOLLARS cheaper than the 8:00 am version of same. You too will immediately scoff at those slaves to idleness who believe in sleeping beyond daybreak. You will laugh scornfully at the notion that public transport does not regularly function in the wee small hours. You, like me, will ponder all the pleasing uses to which $10 can be put (three kilos of zucchini, 100 pages of improving literature, a very small hamster). And you will sign up for the 6:00 am flight in full confidence that this has been the ticket acquisition coup of the century.

But now this 6:00 am flight ain't so many hours off, and I am sneezing at those ten dollars. I am sneezing at them good and proper. I am seeing that I have to be standing at a bus stop on Parramatta Rd at 4:46 am (oh, because I have an aversion to taxis ... did I mention? ... it's because they cost too much). I am thinking of the sleep I will not sleep, and the dreams I will not dream, like the one where I win the gymkhana and Nikolai, my fictitious Romanian paramour, presents me with a family of otters.

But the good news be, there's nothing like underslept-and-surly house-hunting on a saturday morning. Toodle-pip.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

By God, Doctor! I am happy to post you the ten Guineas (too late though I realise this may be) so that you may travel at a more humane and arrive in Herr Tymnus' fair berg fully rested and of, perhaps, a somewhat more open mind. That's the deuce of a lot of travel to be done in one day - and with the added burden of having to deal with slimy and unctuous vendors of "real-estate". I, for one, much prefer dwelling in "imaginary-estate" which allows me thus to inhabit the capacious and venerable Nottlesby Manor, which, to my guests, is carefuly disguised as a meagre studio apartment.

Anonymous said...

...travel at a more humane and arrive - at a more humane time I mean.

TimT said...

'Taxis cost too much', you say?Yeah, at least 10 dollars to be precise.

Once I caught a bus to the wrong airport, came back to Spencer Street station by the next bus, and found out that it was over an hour till the next bus came in for Avalon airport. I ended up spending 90 dollars upwards on the taxi fare...

Anonymous said...

Now that's excess!

But also necessary under the circs.

lucy tartan said...

I hope you're flying into Tullamarine and not to Avalon, which is a really, really long way away from Melbourne.

Anonymous said...

Oh, I hope you're flying into Tullamarine! Avalon is such a long way from Melbourne. . . Let me know how it goes.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Lucy T and Nicola, I'm afraid your wise words came too late. Avalon it was. Never again.

Nottles, m'dear: thanks for the retrospective £10; in fact I could have foot a bigger bill myself, but the same instinct that causes me to retrieve abandoned furniture from the roadside, only to import furniture lice into the house, also causes me to take extreme measures in pursuit of minute savings. These are what they call, in domestic management circles, False Economies, because of their resemblance to false teeth.

Anonymous said...

"...their resemblance to false teeth" ye say, Doctor? I have never seen the wind whistle through, nor saliva trickle past, an extra Ten Guineas! Begad, false economies indeed - and to then be stuck out at Avalon. Mists, damp women waving swords, gallant chaps &c notwithstanding, one simply cannot fly into anywhere other than Tullamarine.

I rather fancy we've all learned something from this.