Day 1220: The Chair, Part 40 – The Curse of Being Thrifty

The lengths Serena and I have gone in order to save a few bucks tend to borderline on the absurd. 

In order to save money on our first house, we opted to do the renovations ourselves… although neither of us had ever tiled anything beyond a six inch mosaic square in an art class.

On our first trip overseas (before joining the service and after having Grayson) we decided a 6 hours layover after an 11+ hour flight was doable… since the layover would also come with a minimal cost savings.

While on our six week Home Leave to Atlanta… we decided not to rent a car.

Hey!  Let’s setup our own wedding!  (The Chair, Part 3)

And when we needed a stroller in London, we ask our friends to bring one with him…

For some reason, when it comes to saving money, Serena and I still behave as if we are poor college kids just trying to scrap by… then again we have two kids and a mortgage payment… so… we might not be in college anymore, although I was in the process of writing my Graduate thesis during the time period of ‘The Chair’, we’re still poor in our own minds.

Although… I prefer the term ‘thrifty’… and someday I hope we learn how to do a cost/benefit analysis… because… well… sometimes the savings isn’t worth it.  Like when we need a new rocking chair, because ours is packed in a storage container in Hagerstown, (The Chair, Part 5). 

About a week before Costello arrived with our new stroller, Serena and I had been on a quest of our own.  To find ‘The Chair’… a rocking or gliding nursing chair… and honestly, they were pretty hard to find… and the ones we did weren’t VERY expensive.  The cheapest we could find was at Hammonds, a prominent department store in London, for about £350.00 (roughly $550.00).

Aghast at the price, I suggested we go to IKEA… a suggestion that has become my great folly in life.  With Costello at my side, fresh off the plane/bus/train, I would never have been able to predict how ridiculous our adventure would become… and most importantly, the ridiculous number of blog entries I would get out of this horrible period in my life.

The trip to IKEA took an EXTREMELY long time:

The Chair, Part 1

                The Chair, Part 4

                                The Chair, Part 6

                                                The Chair, Part 9

And there we were… on a cold rainy January evening, somewhere outside London, staring up at the behemoth… the worst place ever created by man has ever created (Part 7 and Part 8)… and we were about to walk into the heart of the beast.

Dang it… why do I need to be so darn thrifty all the time!?!

Day 1207: SchutzHappens, October 2011 – ‘Rain On Me’

Day 1203: The Chair, Part 39 – The Arrival

I think you’re all eating right.

Today I was planning to post our October Family Video, but just before loading it I noticed something didn’t render correctly… so instead… you get another episode of ‘The Chair’.  Lucky you!

So… yeah… Costello spent about seven hours on a full bus with a stroller on his lap… and if this feat of human endurance and commitment weren’t impressive enough on its own, remember, Costello did this right on the heels of some other serious traveling without any sleep.

Now, the timeline has probably seemed a bit farfetched.  To be honest this all happened over a year and a half ago and some of the timing is a bit fuzzy.  So, for this post I went back and found Costello’s old itinerary and things seem to check out.

He started at 3:40pm (EST) the previous day when he flew from Atlanta to Charlotte.  Then, after an hour and a half layover he boarded a second flight leaving at 6:20pm that evening.  His scheduled arrival in London was supposed to be 7:20am (3:20am EST) the following day.  Roughly 12 hours of ‘normal’ scheduled travel time.

But, as we all know… he didn’t make it to London… for quite some time.

So, with the three hours on the tarmac, two wandering around Manchester airport, and seven on the bus… his travel time is up to 24 hours making that about 7pm London time.

To me, this timing sounds about right based on how my day turned out.  You see, as I’ve hinted in previous posts, I had planned to take that day off.  I had originally planned to meet Costello at Victoria Station as he got off the Gatwick Express.  (In previous posts I might have mentioned Heathrow, however, after reexamining his itinerary, Costello was supposed to land at the Gatwick Airport).  And after picking him up, I had planning on just hanging out for the day.  However when his flight was diverted to Manchester to wait out the ‘snow storm’ I decided to go to work until he landed safely in Gatwick and boarded the Express… I figured I would only end up putting in a half day… however… I ended up working the entire day.  A little after 5pm I walked home.

I probably got home around 5:45ish… and during our time in London, we normally ate dinner about an hour or so after I got home.  And that faithful day, Costello called around the tail end of dinner to tell me they were finally pulling into the Gatwick Airport.  He called again about twenty minutes later to tell me he had boarded the Gatwick Express.  And that is when I left to meet him at Victoria Station. 

About 30 or 45 minutes later, Costello arrived in Victoria Station.

Now… as you can imagine, after a journey like this we probably shared a very Hollywood-style reunion.  The two of us running through a crowded British train station trying to seek each other out while violin music soared to a crescendo… calling each other’s names loudly and rushing together for a well earned man-hug.   

Well… this is probably how the story will end when Brian Grazer finds my blog and hires Ben Stiller to play Costello. 

But, no… that’s not what really happened.  Sure the train station was crowded… and British.  And I we did have trouble finding each other… but when we finally connected there was no man-hug.  No, Costello simply shoved a large plastic bundle into my arms and said, “Here’s you f---ing stroller.”