April 1, 2009: Uzbekistan

Before I left for work I had two not so nice things happen to me. Firstly I left my keys in my apartment officially locking me out, I am unfortunately not living in the keyless Castle this semester. Secondly I realized that the lump of Euro-Cash that was paid to my landlord at the end of December was not my first and last months rent, but my first months rent and my security deposit, this means that I have to suck the funds out of my not so plentiful bank account and pay rent this month. Damn.

“Hello,
I have decided to preemptively terminate my employment at Dynetek. I have found work with a small company called Tusktree Composites in Uzbekistan, their birch bark/ivory composite pressure vessel technology is impressive and in my opinion vastly superior to the product marketed by Dynetek. I will be leaving by camel train after work today. I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.
Tom
P.S. Happy April-Fools Day”

This is the April-Fools email that I sent out at work today. Most people caught on and sent back equally hilarious emails, however one lady honestly thought that I was leaving and sent back a very concerned email asking about how long I would be staying in Uzbekistan and what a camel train was. In the end everyone got the joke and a chuckle was shared by all.

I got home and remembered that I was locked out. I sat on my concrete balcony and read the book that my mom sent me for an hour or so until my neighbor showed up, beers in hand. I gratefully accepted a beer and we got to talking about Antonov Russian transport planes, this is what normal neighbors talk about, right? I was happy with the topic of conversation because I had just read the Wikipedia article on the Antonov; the conversation held me over until my landlord showed up and let me in.