It was Mel’s birthday last week. Or the week before. As if I’d forget. And I booked a ‘surprise’. Ahhhhh, how sweet. Yes, I am that kind, considerate, caring, loving, romantic and totally fucking wonderful. I am New Man. Soft enough to moisturise and be in touch with other’s feelings yet hard enough to spit. When called for.

Mel has always wanted to go to Vienna. Because I went years ago and she didn’t and thus the status quo needs to be maintained. So how perfect, a weekend in Vienna for her birthday. Brilliant. A ‘surprise’.

Which it would have been if the world was as it was when I went to Hitler’s birthland about 30 years ago. But its not. Its a changed place. Changed generally for the better. Except for ‘leaving a trail’. Hmmmmmm.

I booked the flights on Air Miles; long story, expensive flights, refusal to go to Gatwick for a 7am flight (I’m ‘hard’, just not totally fucking stupid), and I had a spare companion voucher that was going to be wasted. And for once, and not just once in my lifetime but once in the entire history of everyone’s lifetime who’s ever collected as many as 1 single Air Mile, the flights I wanted had seat availability. I’ll repeat that: the flights I wanted had seat availability. Was that ‘my day’, or WHAT????? The usual Air Mile experience is that you want a flight to Madrid on Tuesday the 4th at about 11am and you end up going to Calcutta on the 26th at midnight. Cos you ‘have to be flexible’.

Anyway, flights booked, job done. And BA operate a paperless, ticketless system, which is great. So four seconds after my booking my email confirmation came through, my ‘e-tickets’ and I immediately forwarded the email to my work address and deleted the original from my home address. In case it be seen. Brilliant.

2 days later Mel (who, to her constant annoyance and my total oblivion, always opens the post) called out: “there’s a letter here from British Airways for you… let’s see…”

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! running to intercept, “DON’T YOU KNOW ITS A FEDERAL OFFENSE TO TAMPER WITH SOMEONE ELSE’S POST????? GIMME THAT QUICKLY”.

Phew, don’t think she tumbled to any anxiety on my part there. The old poker face (at that time dripping with sweat) worked once more as I opened the “e-ticket confirmation letter”. The single most futile and contradictory waste of postage ever considered. A letter, full of paper, to confirm how wonderfully paperless BA are. Tossers. They sent it twice too. Duplicated. In case Mel missed the first one.

Close call but the mystery was maintained. The surprise in tact. We ducked the bullet.

I booked the hotel. On Bookers.com. Great. Lovely hotel. Right near where Hitler once pissed in a doorway when he was a student. The site told me: “we will never take your payment for hotel bookings; they will take it directly from you”. Ahhh, brilliant, I thought, so I’ll pay when I check in/out or never if I can run fast enough.

Yesterday Mel’s looking at the Amex bill. “Oh, what’s this fror the Schveinenschturblersheissen Hotel in Vienna?”

OH. FUCK. ME.

So she knows where we’re going, who we’re flying with, where we’re staying.

But she doesn’t know when, and she doesn’t know what colour underwear I’m taking, so its still a big surprise. Though not as big as it would have been years ago when I’d have paid in cash, torn up the receipts and gone by boat.

They are watching you, monitoring your every movement AND TELLING YOUR BLEEDING WIFE.

Happy surprise Friday

A xxxx