LADY LUCK

Lady Luck and I have always had a tenuous relationship at best. So it was no real surprise when Prince Charming and I landed at the airport to start our whirlwind trip around the world that we had no luck at all with the baggage handlers and pleading dyslexia fell completely on deaf eyes. My sorry attempt to convince the glorified trolley dolly that in fact my bag weighs 24kgs when actually it rings in at around 42kgs was having no effect at all. Batting eyelids and smiling sweetly was doing nothing to charm the young Hitler in training so I felt the need to resort to reason... Never ever do this at an airport, EVER.

ME: Okay, how about we buy another seat, that way we can have the baggage allowance of that seat?

Hitler in Training: I'm afraid you can't do that.

ME: Why not?

HIT: It's against the rules.

ME: Well could we chat to the person who wrote the rules?

HIT: I'm afraid he's dead.

ME: And it doesn't strike you as odd you are still applying rules written by a dead guy who possibly lived in the dark ages.

HIT: (confusion reigns)...

ME: Nevermind. How about this... You see that guy over there, he weighs in at at least 100kgs. How about you give me my 42kg bag as possible flab I may put on over the next few years and we'll call it quits.

HIT: Ma'am, that's impossible. You have an overweight bag which we have to charge for.

ME: Yes, but he is overweight all by himself, are you going to charge him for being fat??? Can you see no reason man!!!

(At this point Prince Charming steps in to calm his frazzled wife and reasons with the young Hitler in the only universal language)

PC: Okay, in the interest of sparring your eyeballs and my wife's sanity, how much is this going to cost?

And it was with that one sentence that we were so thankful our actual tickets only cost the price of flat screen TV and the over-weight cost was the price of the villa that TV might go into one day!

Needless to say, this episode would repeat itself 3 times before we were to land and Lady Luck finally registered us on her radar. You see, currently we find ourselves in the wonderfully sun-filled region of Florida where we have decided to settle for the next 6 months. As luck would have it, this was one of the easiest and quickest decisions we have had to make. Firstly, we were flying down to see family and friends and I was fully prepared with the speech of reason for the check-in counter lady when it became null and void. She looked at us, checked our passports, mentioned that we were in fact relocating a large african continent worth of clothing and proceeded to smile, issue our tickets and bid us farewell. YAY! Some pizza and ice-cream later, we landed in Florida to find we had a stunning apartment available to us and would we like to rent it. YES! A quick "surprise, we're here" introduction to Prince Charming's wonderful mother and our plans were laid and set within hours. 

So it is with this news that New York can have her freezing cold winter and we will return to see her in all her glory in the springtime when the blossoms and sunshine allow her to shed her winter coat and smile in all her sparkling summer beauty.