There is so much beautiful artwork out there and sometimes it really pains me, like I mean, REALLY hurts, that I can’t just buy it all. Or at least one piece from each of the many, many artists I admire so much. Paintings, illustrations, embroidery, photography, drawings, collages…my walls would be literally COVERED floor to ceiling in every room if I allowed myself to indulge my passion for art. Thank goodness for Instagram then, which has turned, for me, into my own private art museum, with ever-changing displays of loveliness. I can admire art, like it, write a comment to an artist about how beautiful it is, but I can neither afford to support their work nor find the space for it if I did.
I’ve also realized that I’m past the point of acquiring things. Even art, sad to say. If I want to acquire more things of beauty to display in my home, it will now mean removing something I already have that I love equally. I still have boxes of cards I’ve purchased because they’re pretty (not on display), a closet full of framed posters and prints and photographs that I have no room for, notebooks full of pages carefully torn from magazines to preserve something I thought worth keeping, simply because it moved me, and 2 full shelves of photo albums full of family pictures that I rarely, if ever, look at. And that’s not even counting the digital hoarding I’ve done: folders full of JPGs of art I love, art I wish I owned. So much art, so little time and space and money.
On Wednesday night, when I wrote my last post, I wasn’t feeling well, but I had too much to do to let myself fall sick. Since I thought it best to go to bed early, I asked Anders to please start looking for a plane ticket for Martin’s trip home in mid-May. I’ve been starting to worry that we were already running late on getting it purchased and prices were already starting to go up beyond what I felt like we could afford. Anders found an excellently priced flight from Toronto. We would still have to figure out getting Martin to and from Detroit to Toronto, but the flights from Detroit itself were a LOT more expensive. So he booked it, and we sent the info to Martin and I went to bed feeling both pleased and accomplished.
Cue the next afternoon, when Anders happened to see a news report by chance, stating that WOWAir had just announced bankruptcy and ceased operations, effective immediately. He sent me the link and then called the bank. We could see in the bank app that the transaction for the ticket purchase hadn’t actually gone through all the way; it still showed as “pending amount”, but the bank told him that, nope, sorry, nothing we can do, because the payment was made with a debit card, not a credit card.
Since then, I swear, if ONE MORE PERSON says with a self-righteous tone, “Oh well, you should always buy airline tickets with a credit card; I always do.” I will chop their head off with the side of my debit card (slowly, since I’d have to saw). We don’t even HAVE a credit card. We’ve purchased airline tickets for over 20 years with debit cards and never had a problem, but this time it bit us royally in the ass.
The page that the announcement was on stated that IF you paid with a credit card, you could contact your card company for reimbursement. And if you purchased through a travel agency or a package tour, you could contact them for reimbursement as they have travel insurance. Our home insurance doesn’t cover it, we checked. At the bottom of the page it stated that for all other persons affected, you could lay a claim against the estate. No further info. And below that the page said “Was this information helpful? Yes or no, with a box to send a message.
“NO,” I wrote, “Lay a claim against the estate WHERE? HOW?” …and shockingly, I got an answer! Not a helpful one, but an answer nonetheless, from an Icelandic fellow, who said, “Yes, sorry but that info isn’t available yet since the announcement is so new, and the webpage will be updated once there is more information.”
I thought it was someone from WOWAir so I immediately wrote back asking if the transaction could please be cancelled immediately since we could see it was still pending, but he replied very kindly that no, sorry, they were the Icelandic Transit Authority, not WOWAir, and couldn’t help, but here’s a list of all the phone numbers for WOWAir customer support centers. …All of which were already disconnected, but hey, thanks for answering, anyway, actual person who felt bad for someone. One of the news articles I read also said that WOWAir Support was actually answering questions and I sent a message to them there but of course haven’t received an answer. I find it completely unconscionable that the airline was advertising flights and taking payments right up until the minute the announcement was made. I know that’s just how business works, but I find it immoral, unethical and just plain BOGUS.
GAAAAH. So we are out 6000 kronor for that ticket and who knows when or if we will be able to get any of it back, depending on when we get info on how to make a claim. And my friends and I still haven’t gotten anywhere with our claim for reimbursement for the Marrakesh trip that got cancelled when the travel agency we booked through went bankrupt last year. From what I’ve read, we are basically shit out of luck. So, I’m down 10,000 kronor on travel purchases. %&ยค/#”! We’ve already bought ANOTHER ticket (yes, with a credit card, and NO, not with a low-cost airline) so that Martin can come home for 6 weeks before his summer job, so there went my entire bonus. Sigh. Good thing I GOT a bonus, I guess.
Too bad I didn’t just spend that money on art.