the joy that is jetlag

I sit up with a jolt. The room is pitch-black except for the glow from the bedside clock: 2.15 a.m. Where the hell am I? And, more importantly, am I alone?

Fumbling, I switch on the bedside lamp. As my eyes adjust to the blinding light I breathe out a sigh of relief – the other side of the bed is empty. My dignity is still intact.

The room does look familiar, but then all hotel rooms do start looking alike when you’ve stayed in as many as I have. I roll out of bed and slide back the curtains, allowing the bright lights of a city’s skyline to present themselves to me.

Singapore. That’s right, I’m in Singapore.

I am unsure if I’m hung-over or still drunk. Jetlag is a strange sensation. Sometimes two glasses of wine have the same effect as a dozen martinis; yet other times a dozen martinis feel like two glasses of wine. I can’t be sure how the glasses of wine will affect me, yet I drink them just the same.

‘How do you cope with jetlag?’ people often ask me.

‘I don’t,’ I tell them simply.

I’ve tried every fix I could think of, from staying on my local home-time to drinking a dozen bottles of Evian. But the only thing that remotely seems to work is having those two glasses of wine – and they don’t work at all.

It’s 2.15 a.m.: this is the worst time of the day for someone to be wide awake. The shops won’t be open for nearly eight more hours, a real coffee is unobtainable for nearly four more hours and the only shows available on TV are either infomercials or in Chinese.

I decide to console myself with chocolate.

The only chocolate I find in the room’s mini-bar is a Snickers bar. I don’t really like peanuts. But Chocolate is by far my favourite food group.

Tiredness, hunger, and jetlag can affect your judgement. It is unwise to sit on pristine white sheets and pick peanuts from a chocolate bar. It is poorer judgement to take an unexpected, but appreciated nap, to wake up lying face down on the wrapper with the half uneaten Snickers bar and the discarded nuts stuck to your face.

While I plucked out pieces of peanut from my cheek and contemplated my stupidity, I suddenly thought of something else: What will housekeeping think of me when they discover the chocolate stains on the sheets? Oh no, what if they don’t know it is chocolate? By the time I had scrubbed out every last trace of my foolishness from the sheets – and had also left behind a substantial housekeeping tip on the bedside table – it was morning outside. Starbucks will be open soon, I console myself.

As I walk toward the shower I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

So that’s what I am going to look like in ten years’ time!

I look away quickly. Damn jetlag.

* * *

I can’t get a coffee quick enough. Caffeine is not a drug – it’s a vitamin. Comedian Steven Wright makes a joke about how he first makes an instant coffee just so he has the energy to go ahead and make a regular one.

I want to laugh at the joke, but I cannot. Not yet. Not until I’ve had my usual double-shot latte.

As I enter Starbucks, however, my heart sinks, for I discover a twisting and turning queue. How is it even possible for a shop that has only been open for five minutes to have a queue this long? In my state, a five-minute wait for coffee is five minutes too long.

It is not fair that I have a genuine medical need for coffee, yet I am forced to line up behind all these so-called recreational users. I joke, of course, but I have often thought there should be an express lane for double gold-platinum frequent coffee users like myself.

Then, suddenly, I realise that the queue is made up of airline crew: some from my airline; some from others, but all airline crew nonetheless. It is amazing how easily you can identify your fellow crew, even when they are out of uniform, and even if they belong to other airlines. There are no neon signs flashing the words ‘crew’, but you just know. Mostly from the ‘I-need-a-damn-coffee-right-now’ look on their face – pretty much the same look I have on my face now.

I take my first sip of latte delight. ‘Ahhhhhhh!’ I let out a long and orgasmic sigh of ecstasy. I thought Meg Ryan’s fake orgasm scene in ‘When Harry Met Sally’ was quite realistic. My performance is more convincing. Now I can function properly. That first coffee always gives me the energy and the focus to make plans, at least short-term ones – I immediately make plans to have another coffee.

Later I am catching up with one of my ‘flying’ girlfriends for lunch. Until then, I have enough caffeine running through my veins to do the one thing I do better than anything else – shop.

Everyone needs a hobby, I’ve been told. Shopping is my hobby.