Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Thursday, July 30
And the cruise is booked!
I am not making that up…I was sitting at my desk about done for the day thinking about the London-to-New-York cruise – or The Crossing as us confirmed passengers call it – and thought well, you know, if you don’t book passage you’ll have to stow away and that wouldn’t any fun and I could think of no reason to continue postponing it…The Virus Era could prove problematic but hopefully not and while I suspected they had plenty of availability you never know.
Since this was my first cruise booking, I figured it couldn’t hurt to call even though I had the website right in front of me and Lou, a rather ardent sort who turned out to be in Los Angeles, took my call…He got a bit loud when he couldn’t understand something but was otherwise serviceable.
The first thing to determine is what class passage I desired..I’m doing OK moneywise – neither rich nor broke – but my last name is Sparrow and not Rockefeller and both second and first classes were a bit more than I wanted to spend on lodging for myself…All right, Lou said, do you want a stateroom fore or aft or midships…Holy crap, actual nautical phraseology!!!…Well, anyone who’s been in so much as a rowboat knows the ends of a ship moves the most, so I said midships…It’s $300 more but it will be worth it and Lou assigned me Cabin 5126…He also asked if I wanted to be included on the upgrade list, which is assigned randomly, subject to availability and I said sure…I suppose there are people who say no to that but ol’ Sparrow isn’t one of them.
Next, he asked what time I wanted my dinner seating: 1800 or 2030???…Each class has its own dining room, coats required for dinner, and after some thought, I went with 2030…What size table did I desire???…Well, even a dolt like me realizes you don’t get dressed up for dinner to sit by yourself so screw it, I requested a table for eight because who the hell knows who you are going to meet.
I also asked how much it would cost if, somehow, I found a woman to bring along…This is unlikely because I don’t want a woman to bring along, but it’s not that much because solo travelers pay only a bit less than the two-person rate anyway.
As it turned out, this was nothing I couldn’t have done online, but it was nice to have a live human walk me through it…I immediately logged on to the website, clicked on “Booked Guests” and BOOM, there was my reservation…It noted there were 263 days until sailing.
Ol’ Sparrow was an international travel booking machine today because there was no reason not to book travel to and accommodations in London, as well…This was a pain in the arse…I’d scoped it out beforehand so I knew there were some good deals out there if you booked both together and, after some searching, I found a satisfactory deal…This was where the hell began…My first hotel choice was sold out, tho I didn’t find that tidbit out till almost the very end of the process…So you find another hotel…Preferably, it would be something quaint and veddy British but none were available, only chain hotels you can stay in anywhere so I chose the same chain as the hotel I work at now…More hell…My credit card company got worried about all this action and put a hold on my card…There was an immediate text asking if this was really me and I texted back yes, dammit, and was told all was good but the card was declined again…I call the company…After reviewing every goddamned transaction ever made on the card, they were satisfied I was me and released the hold.
The flight goes from the big city to Montreal and then to London, which isn’t too bad, and all told I got airfare and four nights in London for less than $600, a steal…Heck, just for funsies I scoped out the same one-way flight on the airline’s website and it was over a grand, so I did well.
I came this close to going to the big city today…Recall a couple of weeks I went out there and bought some blazers for the cruise and they’re in and they come with complimentary tailoring so ol’ Sparrow does need to go out there to have the sleeves fitted…But, like last week, no reason could be found to leave The Shire…After morning project work, the gym and the walk – the Fairgrounds Route – it was satisfactory to sit in the chair and read…Shopping and lunch at the Mexican joint in the next county were even put off.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 1830 Wednesday until 0130 Thursday…7.0 hours for the day and 26.0 hours for the week…The cat has been noticeably absent lately, preferring to wait for me in the kitchen rather than come in at first stirring and escort me to the kitchen.
The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.
It was inspired by the 19th-century British novel of the same name.
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