Lessons in Life

You know there are those moments in life you just feel like you've learnt a lesson that will go down in the histories of ultimate lessons to learn. I have those moments and whenever I have that general sense of immense stupidity for doing something that I shouldn't have done, I take a piece of paper and write down the words 'Lessons in Life', and start listing things that I should never ever do again in my life. I seem to recall accumulating those 'lessons in life' scraps of paper over the last few years... but I never seem to be able to keep them all in one place and must have misplaced several of them.

So here's what I've learnt from my journey home this time.
Lesson in Life #1: Never ever take KLM flights again.
Lesson in Life #2: Always weigh luggage before a flight, and adjust accordingly to airline.
Lesson in Life #3: Always have rainy day funds in a direct debit account to avoid having to pay unecessary charges.

Without going into too much unecessary detail, I had the officially most horrible flying experience whilst coming back. It all started when I left for the airport. the taxi driver who sent me there though not horrible, was incredibly impatient and kept blaming me for being a few minutes late, claiming he had to pick another client up at another terminal at half two, a mere one hour after he picked me. did he really expect to drive all the way to heathrow from central london in under an hour? throughout the bumpy journey, he kept making clicking noises with his mouth, tapping his wrinkled fingers on the steering wheel incessantly, and checking his watch impatiently while casting snide looks at me, as if blaming me, when it was obvious the digital clock on the dashboard told him the time without him having to glance at it. Also, he was blasting the radio at top volume, I'm not sure if it was done purposely to annoy me - but as a result of the bumpy ride and loud radio with not enough ventilation, I felt ready to vomit in his car. Don't think that'd be a pretty sight. The only plus side was the radio channel that was on was giving an ongoing commentary of the women's Wimbledon finals so I had the minimal pleasure of following the surprising upstaging of Serena Williams by 17 year old Sharapova.

When I finally reached the KLM counter I thought everything would be smooth-sailing but noooo apparently my luggage was too heavy. it was 34.7 kg - which is quite heavy - but to be fair when I fly Singapore Airlines, I get away with that. Even my friend who flies Emirates just told me that she got away with a 37 kg luggage. And to think Emirates flight is slightly cheaper than KLM! I got ordered to lighten my luggage by hook or crook, or pay up 127 GBP, despite my attempts at the pathetic-student-effort of pleading the case of having loads of books and being alone at the airport. The bitch at the counter had a heart of stone, though. And sent me away, nevertheless.

I rolled my trolley away contemplating hard as to what course of action I should take and finally decided to ring my mum. no answer. rang home. My dad picked up and half-reproached me for always having heavy luggages. in my defense, i claimed i never really had a problem before KLM. I asked for mum and he replied 'hrmph.. you think you call your mum, she'd offer any help? She wouldn't know what to do either.' haha... he was speaking some truth. In the end, he suggested me posting my stuff back to myself, or renting a locker at the airport to store it for summer. I hung up the phone in search of a post office, which I found, and this little cheerful pakistani man was serving customers. he told me I could ship things home but it'd cost loads and I'd have to find my own box. Find my own box? I was too dismayed. How am I gonna do that! Look in WH Smith, he advised. They usually have boxes there. So I trotted there, again lugging my heavy burdens in search of a box. I finally found one and after profusely thanking the chinese guy who served my request, looked for a corner to repack my stuff.

I was struggling with my boxes and luggages, bruising myself in the process with vain attempts to shift my luggage around, when this girl (well, she's in her twenties, if girl doesn't quite accurately describe her) asked me if i needed help. We started chatting and that was when I found out she got through on Emirates with 37 kg! She, however, had been waiting for more than a day, for a flight because it was cancelled the last minute, and had to go home last night, before coming back to the airport to find her flight delayed again. We were lamenting on the horrible plights we've landed ourselves in, amidst discussing how to obtain UK working visas. She kindly looked after my luggage while i made two more trips there and back from the KLM counter because this annoyingly good-looking guy at the counter refused to let me have 24.7 kg on my luggage. He said the most it could be was 22. I said, well, it's only 2 more kg can't you just let me through. And then he was like Where do you draw the line, then?

I was so exasperated. I went back to where the girl was, I just realised I never found out her name despite having quite an in depth conversation with her. I think her name is Joanne, simply because she feels like she could be a Joanne. Or Irene.
Anyway, I took some stuff out and tried to stuff it in my box. And returned to the counter where the bitch who served me first, served me again. She finally allowed my baggage on and then asked me in a condescending-sort-of-way What did you do with your excess baggage? I felt like curtly replying It's none of your fucking business you stubborn bitch but I think that would have been a tad overtly-dramatic. So I decided to be nice and attempted a pathetic smile and said I shipped it home. She looked confused and asked downstairs? I had no idea what was downstairs, she was just taking a shot - and felt tempted to say yeah, downstairs where a ship is waiting for me but I figured sarcasm wouldn't have gone down well. So instead I said at the post office (you idiot, I silently added, where else!)..

After checking in, I went to the post office where the friendly post-office guy (let's call him ali) served me again. He provided me brown tape and a pen and told me to pack up my box and write the address on it. I had no scissors or sharp material and couldn't cut the brown tape up... I asked this man sitting down on the floor next to me if he had a swiss knife of some sort, but he didn't. Then I realised I was at the airport, sharp objects are disallowed on planes anyway. So instead, he volunteered using his teeth to help me. He must have bitten off at least 10 strips of tape for me... his wife (I assume) was looking on amusingly. I finally packed the box and lifted it up on the counter. Ali smiled at me and asked, how did you cut the tape? I smiled and said teeth . He shook his head and said seriously, that's not very good. Teeth is important to us. We must take care of it.... you know! And then, he lowered his voice in a conspiratorial tone, I'll teach you a secret... You know how to cut the tape if you don't have scissors? He took a pen and poked a hole in the tape and slid it down, cutting it across like a penknife and said Use a pen... it works! Of course it worked, I must have been an idiot not realising that sooner. But no matter, it was just the way he said it that was really amusing. After charging me an astonishing 67 quid for sending my package home by sea, I realised I had gone over even my overdraft - which means i'll probably incur surcharges for going over my overdraft limit. The day was just not going very well. I had this immsense sense of waste I couldn't shake off - like I was stupidly spending and wasting all these money which could have been easily avoided. It was exactly like paying 24 pounds for two vitamin pills which your friend could have given you for free.

After finally settling myself on my flight, I realised I must have gone through all that pain for a reason. After all, I have gained three valuable 'lessons in life' that I will never commit again. Also, I did make quite a number of friends - Joanne, who helped look after my luggage while I scurried across the airport trying to sort my luggage, the man with his wife who helped me chew off the tape, Ali the friendly post office guy... and later on, this guy called Michael who sat next to me on the plane whom I had quite an interesting conversation with.
I was pouring out my KLM woes to him when he told me he was allowed an extra 5 kg on top of his 22 kg luggage - which made me even more incredulous. But I comfort myself in thinking that they probably allowed him that because he didn't have a hand-carry luggage which I had. And then he said that he had been wanting to use this argument for ages and advised me to do so the next time. He said that we could say that we weigh much less than other people. I'm only 45 kg, tops. And another average man who goes on the flight is say, 80 kg. (some big-sized western men can go up to 120!) Why can't I have a luggage that's in excess, when some other man is going to be obviously adding much more load onto the plane than I am anyway?
Such a good argument. I can't fault it. I even pay the same price as a 120 kg-heavy man.
I can't wait to try this argument when I'm flying back to England. I will have my family to unload stuff on, if it fails. But I just want to try it for it's sake. I'm determined not to let KLM bitches step over me this time.
Alternatively, I am considering cancelling the return portion of my flight and going on some other airline which will obviously be much better. My long haul flight home didn't even have a personal tv screen where I usually enjoy my film marathons - instead I had to crane my neck to watch a common tv which was showing shit films like The Prince and Me I was too tired to stay awake for the good ones, like Starsky and Hutch but if i had my own screen, i would have watched that while I was awake. Instead of random weird programmes they force us to watch on the common screen.

I better stop here... I am aware I may sound like I've been complaining too much. But I have had a hard journey... it is probably justified. Congratulations if you have read thus far.. I know this has been a long entry... but lessons in life hardly come by easily.