Chirky

Earlier today I wrote Roger the following email:

Hi,

Guess what I just did?

Cancelled Reservations.

Oh, yes. You read that correctly. I had my boarding pass in my hand and everything! And then? They said: "We need you here." And they snatched that boarding pass right out of my hand! (Figuratively, not literally.) So. I'm almost crying. (Not really, but I was so looking forward to going to DC.)

Last night as I double-checked my luggage, I felt my heart thump with excitement about visiting DC. It's been far too long since I've been there –eleven years this month, in fact – and though it's just a business trip, it's long overdue. This morning I dragged my suitcase behind me, thumping my way across the parking lot, purse and briefcase in tow, wondering whether any of my neighbors were looking at me with longing and trying to figure out where I was going. I do that to them, afterall.

Traveling is always exciting: visiting someplace new, the way my stomach drops when the flight first goes wheels up, the contest I run against myself on longer flights to see how long I can hold my bladder before I finally break down and make the dreaded trail of tears to the stainless steel micro-stalls, where I undoubtedly will stand in line for three and one-quarter minutes while waiting for a vacancy sign and wishing all the other passengers weren't trying to guess whether I would be the one to hand them a stink bomb on a silver platter. I feel sorry for the people who sit near the toilets.

I walked into our CFO's office and sat down for a conference call. We waited. And waited. And left voicemails. And waited some more. The other party never called us back. I laid my boarding pass to Dulles on our CFO's desk, along with my pad of paper and pencil, and left to talk to a friend while we waited for the call to begin. The other party called back two hours later.

Half an hour after I left the CFO's office, he walked into my cube, laid the boarding pass on my desk, and then said, "Here's your ticket, even though you won't be needing it anymore."

And then he turned and began to chortle with others standing nearby.

I looked at him, like Wha? Why wouldn't I need the boarding pass? My manager walked up behind him and said, "I think we need you here. Call the travel office and tell them to cancel your flight and hotel."

And so here I am, sitting in my cube instead of enduring that blessed 18" airplane seat; and there my suitcase is, hanging around in my trunk with my lip gloss and lotion meticulously packed in a quart-size Ziploc bag instead of being subjected to an inspection and stored in an overhead compartment; and there my CFO is, on the airplane, flying right now in First Class because he was upgraded, which I'm convinced is the only reason he was in such a hurry to leave the office for his flight, completely relishing in the fact that he is going and I am not, because the truth is that my company was sending me just to ensure that he doesn't screw things up. Closing acquisitions isn't really his forte, if you know what I mean.

And so there he is, sitting in his leather seat, and here I am, still sitting in my cube.