Fax Machine Meltdown

August 6th, 2008. Today was challenging – at least mentally. Faced with the need to print, sign, and either scan or fax a document, I anticipated I would have little or no trouble accomplishing this simple task. However, it wasn’t nearly as simple as I had hoped.

The plan was to head to downtown Oranjestad and use a business center that we read about online. It would have worked just fine too, but the scanner (and therefore the fax) was broken. So, we walked around for a while searching, and I became increasingly frustrated.

This is a great example of the mental attitude that won’t work while traveling. Never expect anything to be fast, simple, or easy – at least if you’ve never done it before in the place you’re in.

I had what Sara would describe as a meltdown. As uptight as I am, it’s amazing they don’t happen more often. My apologies.

The second challenge of the day was trying to find the “ideal” working environment. I had hoped that Aruba had a coffee shop with free wifi and places to plug in a laptop, but so far nothing. I’ve come to expect (there’s that word again) the ubiquitous “Seattle style” coffee shop, but no luck. So far.

At least the local McDonald’s offers free WiFi. It’s not perfect, but it works.