Done Like Dinner

The customers have emerged from their conference call and the verdict is that they are done with us. They pack up and drive away, before any more snow arrives and they get stuck up here. It's now up to the boss to decide where to send us, before the same thing happens to us.

I make sure I'm packed and ready to go and try to eat up all the perishable food in the hotel refrigerator. I abandon so much food in a year, it's sad. I try to buy just what I'm going to eat in meals I know I'll have in the hotel, but sometimes things aren't available in a small enough size, or the estimate of how long I'll be in a place is way off and I'm called to move right after I've stocked up. And sometimes I just forget I have food in the fridge. I think I left fudge behind once.

I kill some time doing stupid things. Damn YouTube for giving me the opportunity to watch mindless shows that I managed to miss the first time. (But if you haven't seen Susan Boyle from the British Idol show Britain's Got Talent you must. This is from at least a year ago, so all the cool people have already seen it, I'm sure, but it's the uncool people who have to see it. She is the stereotype of frumpy, and the only members of the audience and judging staff who aren't openly laughing at her are squirming with embarrassment for her. And then she sings. She has the last laugh.

I also review some instrument plates and regulations, just to keep myself current and not forget everything I've learned, especially if I'm going to watch brain-rotting television. It would be terrible if I crossed over the NDB on final approach and could remember a pithy remark Simon made to a contestant (he's so mean -- I had an interview like that once. I wish I'd said "Who do you think you are? Simon Cowell?") but didn't remember to start my timer for the missed approach. Now I'm going to be flying and every time I catch an error there will be Simon Cowell's voice asking me "have you ever been in an aeroplane before?" (And the nice judge next to him saying perkily, "I think you have a really nice attitude.")

It's only an hour before dark when the boss calls with the verdict. He doesn't want us to go to West Virginia right away. Just fly south to where we can park the airplane and get an airline ticket home. It's an early Christmas -- yes, I'm over a month behind on my blogging. No more work for the month means a smaller paycheque, but I don't mind going home anyway. If we flew tonight, by the time we got the plane there, secured for a few weeks, then got ourselves and baggage to the terminal it would probably be too late to get a flight home tonight anyway, so we'll fly out tomorrow a.m. and then home on the airlines the same day. We risk the potential for jinxing and both book tickets.