Good thing vacation only lasts a couple of weeks. I mean, one can only read and write so much. I don't have enough hobbies that I can pursue without spending money, at least at night.

Tomorrow's my first session with a personal trainer. You get three free sessions when you join the gym. Virginia, co-worker and gym partner, and I are having a session together as neither of us has the faintest idea what to do on the equipment. We've been trying out the treadmills, the stationary bicycles, and the elliptical cross-trainers which is a fancy name for stairstep machine. If you go to the gym you'll recognise us immediately. We're the Two Fat Older Broads Who Can't Figure Out How to Work the Damn Machines and Laugh Inappropriately, causing the muscle-laden young things around us to give us withering looks of scorn when they can be bothered to look at us at all. Hopefully our general ineptness with gym equipment will be cured by the personal trainer. I'm tired of the cardio room, I want to work on strengthening my back.

Work's been busy, but we're well into the summer travel season so it's steady rather than frantic. I'm getting lots of calls for Europe despite the high airfares. Seriously, it's impossible to spend less than $1000 to get yourself to Paris, Rome, or Amsterdam this summer, at least from San Francisco. Hotel rooms seem to be the same as last year, and rail is still a good bargain inside Europe, but there aren't any great fare sales because the airlines aren't having any trouble filling their planes. Corporate travel styles have changed, business travel in general is down, but people are going on vacation like their stock was still worth something.

Everyone loves a bargain, but I sometimes wonder what people are thinking when they call me and ask me to work for nothing. They'll announce they have free tickets through mileage, they have a time share condo so they don't need hotel, and they'll be using a friend's car while on their vacation, but would I please mail them some brochures on the location so they know what to do and where to go without buying a guide book, oh, and could I please write down the names of some great little restaurants and maybe what the hottest disco is. I'm totally polite as I ask them where they work, and then ask for free advice based on their specialty. They always get the picture.

But some people are clueless. A big Samoan dude came in today and asked me to endorse his Continental ticket over to Hawaiian Airlines. "I can't do that," I said, trying to look harmless yet firm. It's a little scary saying no to a 300 pound guy.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because I'm not the airlines. I can't just authorize you to use a ticket from one airline on another airline," I replied.

"You could if you wanted," he insisted. "I don't want to fly Continental, I want to fly Hawaiian."

"Samoan dude, I can't do it. I'm not legally entitled to touch your ticket."

"Okay, how about a refund?"

"You didn't buy it from me, you bought it from Continental!"

"So, you just get the money back from them, no big deal. Come on, I don't have all day."

Needless to say he left unsatisfied by my service. What a nutcase. And speaking of nutcases, remember Jesus? He called a couple of weeks ago. He wanted to buy another ticket. I told him he still owed us $600 for the last ticket because of his fraudulent use of someone else's credit card and until he paid us he was out of luck. He acted surprised and claimed he'd be in to pay us. Yeah, right. Never heard from him again.

That's right, Jesus is a deadbeat. It's enough to make you lose faith in humanity.

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