2003-09-16 - 2:33 p.m.

My Conversation with Mr. Pink this morning via phone:

Him: What's happening?
Me: Not much
Him: So, how are you?
Me: Fine. (Thinking to self: What the fuck do you want?)
Him: Whatcha working on?
Me: Defects
Him: Which one?
Me: [insert very boring technical babble in here] (Thinking to self: Like it matters which one.)
Him: How's that going?
Me: Fine. (Thinking to self: Are we done yet?)
Him: I don't know if you heard but I hurt my back.
Me: Uh huh (Thinking to self: I don't care, fat ass, try eating fewer cheeseburgers, that may help.)
Him: So I won't be in the office, but I'll be calling to check in.
Me: OK (Thinking to self: Thrilling.)
Him: You have my cell number if you need to reach me?
Me: Yeah I think you emailed it out... several times. (Thinking to self: Why the hell would I ever call you?)
Him: OK then, we'll catch up soon.
Me: OK (Thinking to self: Yeah, I can hardly wait.)

I suppose I could have tried feigning concern for the injured Mr. Pink but I really don't give a damn. I pretty much think he's a twit and deserves to be miserable. The best I could come up with is indifference -- I suppose it beats outright hostility on the appropriate work behavior scale. Very soon I can dismiss all thoughts of Mr. Pink, because I'm going on vacation.

Unfortunately, I've got travel anxiety. I'm leaving for Scandinavia Thursday. I'll spend 10 (hopefully) fun-filled days trekking through Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm and Reykjavik with my travel companion Bang Olufsen. (Things learned while planning my trip: 1. How to spell Reykjavik. 2. Typing the word Reykjavik is kinda annoying.)

My mind is swimming with possible debacles I could encounter. I mean I've got debacles in my day-to-day life -- and those are circumstances I'm familiar with and have more control over -- imagine the disasters that could insue whilst on vacation.

Here's my list of current fears:
- Having my passport lost or stolen.
- Having my luggage lost or stolen.
- Accidentally breaking some obscure and bizarre Scandi law and getting arrested.
- That basketcase in the White House declares war on northern Europe and my friend and I are taken as POWs by Scandi militants. At the very least we could be sent back to the States early and miss our trip and maybe not even get our money back.
- Flights being missed or cancelled. (This could even interfere with my plans to go to San Francisco the weekend I get back from Scandinavia.)
- Getting into some medical situation and having to go to some Scandi doctor (truthfully I fear American doctors and medical sitautions too but I can only imagine a Doctor who may or may not speak English being worse). I don't even think my health insurance will do any good there.
- Having my house broken into or set on fire while I'm out of town -- I wouldn't even know about it.
- Getting into some giant and stupid fight with Bang that causes us to not speak to each other for the entire trip. (I don't think we've ever really had a fight of any kind but no time like a vacation for things to get weird.)

I am sure there are crises I haven't even thought of yet in my current state of irratinal panic. I told Bang I'm going crazy, fortunately that's just me, he's not terribly worried, except about the hurricane, which is due to hit when we are supposed to leave, which could stop us from leaving and ruin the entire vacation.

I need to go write some code and stop flipping out now.

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