On Saturday I will fly to Toronto.

However, I have been forced to beat myself up mentally as I never bothered to get a second airmiles card last year and so have waved goodbye to thousands of points. But, I have managed to turn that frown even more upside down as I am participating in the worst activity in the world....packing. I am incapabable of packing light, and must admit that when I see people at the baggage carousel in airports swinging the little bag over their shoulder that contains a toothbrush and a thong for their two week vacation, I get jealous. I feel obliged to pack for all four seasons,all weather conditions and so what if it is the middle of August, it could snow and I MIGHT need that goose down coat.

I decided to leave all my washing until today, which means I have a mountain of ironing to do. Of course, there aren't any guarantees that I will actually do any of it. Not like I signed a contract with the iron. I'll reason a way out of doing it. Of course getting one part of me to reason/negotiate with the other part of me might the symptomatic of something much deeper.....

Today I went into town to get my Canadian dollars and was forced to deal with a weed of an employee. Disaster. I stood at the teller and explained that I was here to collect Canadian dollars and US travellers cheques under the name of E. O'Brien. The weed stared blankly at me and allowed a rather prolonged pause. Eventually after much pausing and staring at each other, he let out a rather large sigh, stared back at me and said, ( wait for it), 'Well I cant do much if you don't tell me who you are'. The security camera was nearly driven through the pea that resides in place of his brain. He was promptly given the 'You had better stop acting the maggot or I will have such a loud complaint made you will regret the day you ever encountered me' look. I rather calmly retold him my name and watched as he forced his bottom from its chair and puffed his way over to the foreign exchange area. He then returned with Canadian dollars and American dollars. I took the opportunity to mimic his sigh and issued the 'look' again and informed him that I had requested US travellers cheques. I might as well have hurled a bucket of cow pats at him such was the look of disgust on his face. He turned from me to stare at the whole two yards he had to retrace back to the foreign exchange area. I was tempted to offer him my bottle of water for the journey, but decided any further aggravation to the weed would have catastrophic effects on my travellers cheques.

Long story short, I got the dollars and cheques and am keeping them under lock and key. The weed wanted to know where I was going in Canada. I lied and said 'Vancouver'. They can have him!