I'm leaving for England two weeks from today and fatalistic chick that I am I've been convinced for months that something's going to come up at the last minute and either ruin the trip or cause me to have to cancel. Why look on the bright side when you can be pessimistic as hell, right? Part of it stems from this crazy little kid who shares my skull, the one who thinks that nothing good is allowed to happen to me. Or, conversely, if something good happens then I'm going to have to pay for it down the line. It ain't logical, it's not the way that 75% of me thinks, but it is a mutant strain in my thinking and just another indicator that I'm neurotic as hell. (Which should not surprise anyway with even a passing acquaintance with moi.)
I'm good at planning, though, so my two traveling companions have given me the go ahead to get the trip all sorted out. And I've proceeded with neurotic vim and vigor. So, anyway, I get a note Friday night from the guy in England who we're renting a cottage from for the last week we're there. The note is nice and chatty (he's a charmingly chatty guy), telling me where to call for the key, etc., and then he says, "Perhaps you could arrange now to send me the balance of the rental fee?"
My stomach hit the floor with a loud iron clang. I'd sent the entire fee in January, registered mail, gotten the signed receipt back in early February. I hadn't bothered to call and verify that it really was him who'd signed it and he really had gotten the check because I feared that might be something a pest would do—but the mutant strain in my brain was telling me in retrospect that this was a shocking failure on my part.
It was too late to call him by the time I read the note as I didn't think my prospective landlord would be thrilled by a call at 3 a.m. British time. So I continued kicking myself up one side and down the other for not calling incessantly and making a pest of myself or sending it FedEx instead of registered mail—for a thousand and one things. See, another mutant strain in my thinking is that because I'm planning this, if the trip isn't picture perfect it's ruined and all my fault. My companions tell me I'm nuts, not to worry, but...
I blame it on the DNA I got from my mother. Moms are convenient to blame, but in this case I think I'm right. If I'm the Queen of Worry, my mom is the Empress. In fact, she was a gold medalist in Worry at the Tokyo Olympics of 1960. It was a proud day for the United States: Old Glory waving in the background, the Star Spangled Banner playing, my mom bowing her head to receive the medal and coming back up with the most fretful expression on her face, worried that she'd bowed too far, see, and the Japanese Olympic official putting the medal around her neck would have to bow even deeper in return, over-balance and fall off the podium...
But I digress. By the time I'd called England the next morning, I had spun so many scenarios about what had gone wrong with the check—I was up to an organized trip check theft ring by that time, I believe—that I'd gone into a full belly attack. That's one of the symptoms of my neurosis: when under stress, my belly explodes on me and I have all sorts of fearful stomach aches. Can't eat without nausea and achy stuff and it's really unpleasant. Usually this situation would not be enough to set me off, but since I'd preworried everything, was convinced the trip would be somehow ruined, and it would be all my fault, it didn't take much to trigger this. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that when I called, his daughter informed me that my landlord was away from home and wouldn't be returning until Sunday afternoon (Brit time). So I had another full 24 hours to fret.
My stomach was in triple knots by the time I talked to him Sunday. When I told him that I was quite concerned about his comment regarding the money because I'd sent the check in January and had his signed receipt in hand, he said, "Oh, perhaps I've gotten you confused with someone else. Yes, I'm sure I have. Oh well, not to worry, never mind. You're clear on how to get the key?" Etc. Very charming man, very charming family. Impossible to stay mad at him when talking to him, but I am wondering if they're at all sticky about strangulation in England?
Oh well, not to worry. In our chat Sunday he managed to work in weather reports, traffic reports in and out of Cornwall, what a chatterbox his aunt is, and the fact that Terry Pratchett used to live just up the road from the cottage. Had I heard of Terry Pratchett? Oh, brilliant.
I thought I'd take Good Omens along to read on the trip and as a kind of talisman that all goes well. Because, God knows, if it doesn't all go well it will be all my fault.
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