Theresa got back from Malaysia yesterday morning. After gym, instead of making a quick dash to the station to catch the 7:08, I casually got into my car and drove to Tullamarine. I got there just before 8am, and when Theresa called to say she was just only about to retrieve her luggage from the carousel, I realised it may take a while before she could get out.
At the dinner at Oliver’s last Sunday, there was a conversation on the parking in the airport. Someone said you can no longer pick passengers from the arrival gate; apparently this is a security consequence from the Glasgow airport incident. J said when he went to pick his daughter he was warned and was told he would be issued an infringement notice for picking her up from a spot which he wasn’t supposed to. As I drove through the areas outside the arrival area, I realised it was filled with tour vehicles and there was a 1-minute pick-up section but it was right at the end of a long stretch.
Anyway, satisfied that I would have an area to ask Theresa to wait for me, I drove into the McDonald restaurant on Centre Road to wait. There wasn’t a spot to park in so after slowly circulating, I thought I might as well take my time through the drive-through for a coffee. This would prove to be my undoing.
Theresa finally rang, I drove up to pick her up and we headed off into the city. I was going to get into the office a little later and had hoped to get in by about 9am or slightly later. The drive from the airport into the office however, was reminiscent of my KL days. The traffic jam, though not quite of Jalan Sultan Ismail or Jalan Tun Razak proportions, felt like one of them. We had left the airport a bit after 8.30 but it took about an hour to get to St Kilda Rd, where the office was. The very short detour I made at McDonald’s at the airport for a tall flat white proved a disaster under these traffic conditions so that by the time I got into the office around 9.30am, I was a total wreck. Once in the building, I did an Asafa Powell to the men’s room and as I stood at the urinal swaying, I wept … from my eyes…
At the office that day, I was very disorientated. I think some of the waste product the disposal of which had been forcibly delayed, made its way to the brains and my thinking was a bit more unconventional for much of the day. It also turned out to be my birthday. I had a piss-up in a different sort of way I guess…
All up, it has been a sort of a zombie type of a week. I drift off to sleep in my bed with the laptop next to me, in Theresa’s place. Sometimes it just goes into screen saver mode the whole night for no reason. That laptop is going back into the briefcase. Theresa got back from Malaysia yesterday morning.
Ante 