I was due to get on a plane at 7pm (with Ollie) on April 1st. I had a girlfriend driving from Connecticut to NY to drive Ollie to quarantine and me to the airport...
At 10am my cell rang...it was Marty, the guy from freight who was organizing Ollie through the quarantine process.
"Hi Nicky, I have bad news"
"Hi Marty, what, the flight's been canceled?"
"Yes, actually."
"Haha, funny April fool's joke"
"I'm SERIOUS. I'm surprised the airline hasn't called you yet, but you can call them to verify it."
Shit, shit, shit. I went into panic mode. More than anything, I HAD to get Ollie on a flight because the timing for his tests would expire on the Saturday and we would have to go through the whole rigmarole again. I spent the entire day on the phone with the airline. They had put me on a domestic flight to LAX to join up with the original flight, but I couldn't make it work with Ollie. We (being Qantas freight and myself) found out quarantine in Sydney doesn't pick up from the airport on a weekend, so I was really down to the wire.
Finally after 12 hours on my cell phone (great for the brain), Ollie was on a flight, but without me.
I then made it my mission the following day, to sort it out. This was way too stressful and taking up WAY too much of my time when, really, I should have been having fun. I let it go for a few hours and met a couple of friends. We went to see a new Indy film called Enlighten Up .
It was great hanging out with them and the movie was fun and light. Something I needed. I left them and started on the phone calls again. After completely losing it with a supervisor from AA, I took a breath and took Ollie for a walk. What was I doing? I know not to fight the Universe. I'm obviously not meant to be on the next flight, so I let it go. I made arrangements to borrow a car so I could take Ollie to the airport and I made plans for myself for the next few days.
Right before I went to bed that night, I checked one more time with the airline and funnily enough, I was on the next day's flight. I was mildly disappointed because I'd finally given in and had fabby plans with friends and wouldn't have to worry about coming home to walk Ollie.
Oh well, I'd been given a couple of extra days, but hadn't used them wisely, so now I had to leave.
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