Friday, March 29, 2024

FROM THE RIDGE: Spending stress causes anxiety attack

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You know how there is nothing worse than other people’s travel stories?
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Here's mine.

Jane has been doing a series of courses for tennis coaches in Auckland over the last few months and last week was her last one.

We hadn't been away together since the beginning of the year and I'm in that short lull period between the busyness of lambing and docking and getting the lambs all drenched a month out from weaning.

So I thought I'd join her and catch up with the two sons now living in the big smoke.

However, I had a meeting in Wellington on her first day but the way airfares work it was cheaper to fly from Auckland return than Napier.

Jane was coaching until 5pm so we planned to drive to Cambridge during the evening, stay with some cousins, get up early next morning and take on the traffic we all hear about and get to the airport in time.

All was going to plan as we neared Cambridge and we kept an eye out for the landmarks to prompt us to turn towards the road to take us to the cousins.

But it seems the roadworks spanning years had finally been completed and before we knew it we were approaching Hamilton on a flash new expressway with poor old Cambridge completely bypassed.

We rang our expectant hosts and said go to sleep we've mucked up and we will just keep going.

Now, I'm a mixture of liking being organised and playing it by ear. Jane just likes certainty.

I told to her to relax because every big airport we've ever seen has plenty of accommodation options and we’d be fine.

A couple of hours later at midnight I was standing at the reception desk of one of only two choices with the other apparently full and this one telling me it was $350 a night.

Now, if I was on my own I'd happily sleep in the ute to save that sum of money and I've done it in the past. Easiest way to save a few bucks.

But it wasn't even worth broaching it with my better half knowing her as I do. I pulled out my Visa card as if I was pulling out one of my own teeth.

Next morning I'm thinking this is actually almost worth it as I walk the 50 metres right into the terminal with a couple of minutes to spare before check-in.

Then came that horrible realisation that this is international not domestic, dummy.

I ran like a lumbering gazelle between the two terminals in about three minutes. Later I had the pleasure to amble it and it takes seven.

The machine said the flight was closed. The lady said no chance but I'd run this far and prepared to run a bit further. I got to the gate and wasn't even last.

Sitting on the plane drenched in sweat I wondered about the sensibileness of my dash.

Not usually a hypochondriac, I wondered if I was feeling so crap because I was so unfit or maybe this was a heart attack.

I don't like making a fuss so thought I'd just sit quietly to see how things eventuated.

I got an insight into how folk with anxiety disorders operate as I started focusing on each possible symptom.

Surely, the plane was full of cardiac doctors and the flight attendants knew how to use those paddle things.

Then I got better so completed the flight reading my neighbour’s discarded paper.

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