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The Worst Day of My Life...

© Bernd Wechner

What follows is an uncharacteristically lengthy piece for Suite 101, but I feel compelled to stretch the column a little this month on account of a story begging to be told. It is riddled with so many of the themes that bind this corner. One of its central themes is fatigue, and of course it can't help but be a little long, on account of that alone, to mention nothing of the array of events that come together to convey such feelings and provoke such thoughts as they must. If the casual reader should prefer a shorter piece, I'm sure there are back articles as yet unread.

Let the story unfold ....

The worst day of my life started rather innocently, with a hint of suspense and challenge in the air. I'd just spent a long week-end in Hamburg with my partner, sorted a few things out, shed a few tears, and was due back in Geneva on the morrow to start work again.

The week before I'd been in Stuttgart on a business trip, had hitched north in my suit, and now had a return flight from Stuttgart to Geneva in my hand. It was cheaper at the time to buy return than one way, so it was kind of gratis. Still it conjured romantic images in my mind somehow, to think of hitching from Hamburg to Stuttgart just in time for my six o'clock flight, so that's what I set out to do.

I was already running a little late for comfort by the time I drove past the big sign on the A7 that said Stuttgart. There were two ways from he A7 to Stuttgart, one over the A3, the other over the A6, and I'd just missed the sign-posted route having gambled on the other. We pulled in to the last services before the A6. Things were about to get interesting.

I asked around politely but no one was turning onto the A6, they were all carrying right on through towards Munich or the Alps. No one, that is except for the odd businessman. But every single last one (headed for Stuttgart as often as not) couldn't take me along for insurance reasons - or so the story rang.

For seven years I'd been riding with businessmen that didn't give a flying f*%k about the insurance rules, but today I had to find the longest run of them I'd ever likely encounter. Every single one of them, going to Stuttgart, expressed the deepest desire to take me along, but an insurance prohibition. Needless to say I saw my flight pass away without me and was committed to the hitch to Geneva as a result.

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