Sophomore Mistake

10:40 am

Okay, so those earlier mistakes of mine were nothing. Nothing compared to the $70 mistake I made when I left my ticket to Taipei somewhere in Calgary.

Now, it’s not as dumb as it sounds. I had changed my ticket to Taipei for a later date and was then issued an itinerary via email. With that itinerary printed out and in hand, I approached the China Airlines counter. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until my ticket agent ran off with my booking number.

She retrieved her manager who then proceeded to ask me if I had my ticket. I told her I only had the itinerary delivered via email. What I didn’t realize was that since the original ticket was issued as a paper ticket, I was still, apparently, travelling on a paper ticket. A paper ticket that was now somewhere in the trash in Calgary.

She the informed me that I would need to buy another ticket. And then I shot laser beams from my eyes that obliterated half of the airport. Or, at least, I wanted to. Instead, I desperately asked if there was some other way I would be able to get on this flight without buying another ticket. She wracked her brains and told me that I could say that I had lost my ticket, pay $70 and then be allowed to board the plane.

I begrudgingly accepted the offer and watched some wee Asian girl dressed in purple hustle off around a corner with my itinerary, my Visa card and my passport (in other words, my life lines). I nervously waited for her return. When she came back, I happily signed away some cash that I had not budgeted for this use and got my boarding pass.

So yes, I am still going to Taiwan. But just barely.

All of this drove out of my mind that, just before this incident, I had ordered a couple of veggie burgers from Burger King only to have them delivered to me with no patties. Is this just how they do it there now? If this morning is any indication of how this trip is going to proceed, I should get ready for a lot of surprises, big and small.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 7th, 2006 at 12:00 am. It is filed under Blog, Taiwan, Travel and tagged with taiwan, Travel, travel log. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.