The high cost of travel
Travel is expensive.
There are the obvious expenses: the plane tickets, hotels and meals. If you travel on business — like most of my travelling — these costs are picked up by the company.
After this, comes the “time is money” expense. Eight hours on an airplane, another two at the airport. An hour getting to the airport on one end, and an hour from the airport to the hotel on the other. Twelve hours. In which you are not working, spending time with loved ones, or even enjoying a raid in World of Warcraft. Instead, it is lost to insidious in-flight movies such as The Proposal.
But again, if you fly on business it’s “part of the job”. You are paid to eat pretzels and watch the in-flight movie. Suck it up.
Finally, there is the lost cost. The lost cost is the cost — both financial and sentimental — of leaving things in airplanes, taxi cabs and hotel rooms (after you check out). Things that need to be replaced — or worse yet, are irreplaceable.
When I was a child, my parents took me and my sister to Quebec. On the way back, one of us — I can’t remember who, which means that it was probably my sister — realised that a favourite toy was left behind at the hotel. There was great upset, crying, and the gnashing of teeth.
And that scene — minus the gnashing, and usually the crying — continues to play itself out on a regular basis. A drawer not checked before checkout. Something missed under the seat of the plane. Travel has resulted in the loss of many, many things that were left behind. Thankfully, most of these are socks, but occasionally something more valuable is lost.
Last week’s trip to Atlanta was particularly costly:
One overpriced hat, two weeks old.
One cufflink.
One case for eyeglasses, empty.
I’d have rather lost another sock.
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