Dang it. Two people are out of the office for the rest of the week. One's going to Mexico and the other's going to Hawaii. Is this fair? Is this right? I spent my two days in Baltimore and didn't even get a tan. I have managed this vilely. Next time I take a vacation I'm going somewhere exotic, somewhere unusual, somewhere . . . oh, wait. I'm going to Arizona. Dang it! This seems wrong. I should be flying off to a foreign clime or to azure seas, not monkeying around in another state.
Yes, folks, this is the dark underbelly of the travel industry: When Travel Lust Turns to Bitter Envy. Of course, I actually chose to go to the state next door, so don't cry for me, California, I never really left you. I get mild cases of travel lust from creating interesting itineraries for clients, but I usually only slide into outright jealousy when I hear about other agents' trips. I think all of us do. I mean, the agent behind me is going to be staying in a hotel on the beach in Cabo San Lucas for a whopping fifty bucks a day, you know? But I know she was really envious when I told her I'd be going to Sedona for free. It's not quite competitive vacationing, but on occasion I sense an edgy little smirk when someone announces their next cool destination. Forgive us. It makes up for the lousy paychecks we started with, okay?
I'm certainly not suffering lousy paychecks now but I started out at $5.25 an hour in 1991 if you can believe that. It was the going rate. I remember thinking "I spent four months and close to two thousand dollars on travel school for this?" Oh, but the perks, they said, the perks will make up for it. Yeah, right. I can't pay the rent with a free airline ticket, and I can't afford to use the ticket because all my money's going to pay the rent. Time off has never been a problem, I'll admit that. And I did love those free tickets for as long as they lasted, but I haven't had one in two years and I probably never will get one again now that the airlines have decided the travel agencies are their competitors instead of their partners. There are still bargains for agents, though, especially for tours and packages. I constantly scan the faxes and industry magazines for deals.
It looks like I won't be going on any long, exotic trips to Africa next year after all. A hearty, realistic assessment of our debt led John and I to formulate a sensible plan to pay things off and sock away a down payment so we can buy a decent house instead of a hovel. All well and good, although I'm awfully disappointed about not going to Africa. However, I'm still planning to do of bit a traveling on my own. I have two vacation goals. Each year I like to check one state and one country off my Never Visited list. Having changed planes there doesn't count as a visit or else I'd be a lot further along. There's some countries I don't care about visiting, like Bulgaria and Lichtenstein and Korea, but I think I'll be pretty old by the time I get to all the ones I want to see.
Mainly because I keep going to Arizona instead.
