Bad Penny: Black Friday

13 February 2009

Black Friday

If ever a sequence of events could induce triskadekaphobia in me, it would be our fateful trip to Tasmania in December where two separate hostels put us up in room #13 as we watched our plans go up in smoke. However, because I know that the hospitality industry deliberately books room 13 last out of professional superstition (is that what you learn in a hotel management degree?) I didn't find it that weird since we booked our hostels late, surely a symptom of the overall lack of planning that sunk the ship of that particular trip. That is, we did ourselves in and stuck ourselves in a box labelled "13," not t'other way 'round.

However, we attempted to head south yet again, to attend the RocKwiz extravaganza at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne. It wasn't our fault this time that 13 crept into our plans, and Friday the 13th at that: Black Friday. The show was to take place on Friday night, and we had nothing to do with scheduling that.

The weather turned on us, though. Since Wednesday Sydney's been cold and rainy, utterly weird summertime weather, and as we sat there at the airport paying premiums on everything, we despondently watched our flight time tumble from 1:05 to 2:30, then 3:30, then 4:30, when it was finally cancelled, like a wounded and suffering horse being put out of its misery. They tried to stick us all on other flights, but by that time we knew we'd miss most of the show and our little weekend trip to Melbourne would wind up being too short and more of a blow to our wallets than we were willing to bear. We simply asked for our money back and came home.

Now we're looking forward to a weekend of rain and improvisation while the Melburnians soak up the sun under the sway of their highfalutin' beer lists. Black-cloaked bastards! Oh well. Hopefully we can make the best of it. It's Valentine's Day, after all, and the world's most wonderful and beautiful woman needs to be shown some appreciation and affection. Hope she'll be my Valentine.