Things didn’t work out as panned today: I missed the bus to the magical land of Europa Park, a theme park with its very own discount Mickey Mouse. Why? Because I swear Apple is conspiring against me.
Let me explain just a tad.
I planned a trip with some of my friends to go to Europa Park earlier this week. I had bought a park day-pass and a bus ticket to the park for this morning. There was one bus that left at 8 a.m. every day. Knowing this, I went to bed early on Friday night (!) and set four alarms on my phone in order to get up on time for this all important mode of transportation. Could never be too careful, right?
It just so happened that earlier on Friday, my phone sent me a notification, telling me that I’m due for a software update — and that it could download and install overnight. I dismissed it at the time. Not careful enough.
Fast forward to the morning. I was in the midst of an awful stress dream, verging on nightmare territory. What about? Missing the bus. I dreamt that I was running after it, across streets, dodging cars, all trying to get to it. I woke up in the middle of the dream, frazzled. Internally, I thought that, hey, it’s just a bad dream. My alarm hadn’t gone off yet! I hadn’t missed the bus in real life! I turned to look at my phone. It read 7:59. Below that was an ‘activation required’ notification.
Shit.
You know that moment when everything comes crashing down around you? When all the pieces come together in your head at once, explaining exactly how you’ve fucked up? I had a miniature version of that then. My alarms hadn’t gone off because my phone had reset due to the iOS update—which I had postponed the day before. Immediately, I went into panic mode, shouting profanity and getting clothes on as fast as possible. I called one of my friends frantically, telling them where I was and so on. My French phone had a bunch of texts on it…which I hadn’t read since it was on silent.
At 8:05, I heard a knock on my door. Pauline. I had woken her up in my frenzy. She was worried about me and I quickly explained the situation (as well as apologizing for waking her up). It eventually dawned on my sleep-addled and panic-ridden brain that I couldn’t just run to the bus station. So it was a no-go this morning. The good news is I can use my tickets some other day.
Thus, I will be going to knock-off Disney-World another weekend. Oh well.
The weirdest thing, though, was that dream. What a strange coincidence, no? It was so detailed and awfully pertinent… Maybe my subconscious was actually trying to tell me something. Freud would be proud, if so. Either way, what a strange way to start a day.