Karen’s Big Day Out

Today was supposed to be my Big Day Out. The Easter Bunny (as mentioned in comments to the previous post) gifted me a voucher for a haircut at SensSpa at the [a?] London Hilton Hotel.

Putting aside the fact that I’d rather go to the dentist than the hairdresser, live 40 miles from central London, and have a total of zero minutes of spare time per week, I did my best to appear thrilled. Generally, I am crap at looking thrilled when I don’t mean it, but I think I got away with it.

Shortly after Easter, I put in place the following arrangements: found a Thursday in July when I didn’t have something on, to coincide with friends in London being available to spend the afternoon/evening talking about knitting; arranged for the MIL to come down from The North (a mere 180 miles) to childmind before and after preschool; looked up train times and prices; put my already-overdue haircut on hold.

Three weeks ago a message was left on my home number saying that because of illness, they wouldn’t be able to see me at 11am, but could offer me an appointment at 1pm instead. They left a number and asked me to confirm. I called the number and got through to an answering machine. I left a message the next day, mentioning that it wasn’t convenient, and asking them to call me back. A week later, having received no call, I called again and got the answering machine. I found another number online and called that, and eventually managed to speak to a human being.

She apologised profusely and told me that I was now booked in for 3:30, because I hadn’t called back to confirm 1pm. I explained exactly what arrangements I had made in order to get to this appointment, and why I wanted my hair cut at 11am as booked several months ago. She said it was not possible as they did not have the staff. I asked what time they would be open on that day? 11:00, she told me. So there will be someone there cutting hair at 11am? Yes. Then please inconvenience someone other than me, who didn’t book this appointment months ago, who can change their plans at the drop of a hat and doesn’t have to move the earth to get into London during the working day. She didn’t have the authority to do that, so promised her manager would call me the next day.

As I type, my original appointment was due to start ten minutes ago. I still haven’t received a call from the manager. I am rather hoping they will be calling to find out why I don’t turn up at 3:30 for the appointment I told them was inconvenient for me. And I have given the voucher away to someone who lives in London.