The other Citigroup bane is their horrific bureaucracy, and that is what I must battle to receive my last paycheck. I'm armed with my knowledge of three 800 numbers. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to get anyone helpful on the line. Most of the time it is impossible to get anyone at all. So, for two solid hours I call and push buttons and call and push more buttons and call. The few times I get people on the line they are ill-equipped to assist. One women searches through a directory and tells me that she doesn't think the department I'm looking for exists. I assure her that Citigroup does indeed have a Payroll Department. Another young man tells me that the connection from one of the 800 numbers to the Payroll department is working fine. He knows because he just tried it and has them on the other line. He can transfer me to them. He winds up transfering me to the first prompt of the 800 number I'd been calling for the past hour. He never bothered to check that once you actually answer the prompts for Payroll you get an endless ring.

Finally, after two hours, as I've said, I get someone in the Payroll Department. After explaining my situation I'm immediately transferred to someone else who answers the phone and then puts me on hold. I guess they really specialize in this department. When the right person is finally willing to speak to me she says that my check was returned to her desk. I know better than to bother asking why it was returned and from where, or why it wasn't directly deposited like it always is, or even why she never bothered to contact me about it. No, I keep it simple and just ask her to send it to me. "You left us a forwarding address in Florida, right?" "No, Illinois," I say. Was that the problem?

Actually, no, she then proceeds to read off my correct forwarding address, including the IL that she had mysteriously interpreted as an abbreviation for Florida. I ask her to mail it to me and she says she will! I thank her, genuinely, without any hint of irritation at the fact that I know that check would have been sitting on her desk for many more months to come if I hadn't sacrificed two hours of my life to track her down.

Painful as that was, it made me feel very good about leaving. With the check in the mail and Citigroup completely off my mind, I spend a few extremely pleasant days bike riding and visiting with family and friends. My final two days I had the rare opportunity to meet with several old high school friends. This was especially gratifying as I had missed our official reunion a few years back when Sybil was so ill. High school wasn't the happiest of times for me but I did meet a lot of friends who I like a great deal. Some of them I have hardly seen in many, many years, but I still hold them in high regard.

A final haircut, some last minute packing, and a bit of journal writing for the last day. Then it's off for the arduous flights over. Since this is a frequest flyer ticket I'm getting the worst of all possible connections: Chicago-Detroit-Tokyo-Singapore. Plus I get 3 hour layovers at both stops -- nasty.

The first two legs go quite well. Narita is not nearly as nice a place to wait out a layover as Detroit, but I chat with a Korean English teacher there for a bit and the time passes. Northwest announces that they have over-booked the last flight and are looking for volunteers to get bumped. The reward is a free round trip in Asia or North America. Normally, I would take this, but I know there will be scheduling catches and I don't want to put Henning out. So I pass.

After boarding, we wind up sitting on the runway for 50 minutes, waiting for takeoff clearance. Thus, my trip started at 7:30 am on Sunday and ended at 1:15 am on Tuesday. Even after considering the 13 hour time change, this is too long a time for planes and airports. Fortunately, Singapore Immigration and Customs are as efficient as usual, so I'm soon with Henning and headed back to his place.

I'm just overjoyed to see him and Singapore and to be done with those flights! Despite the late hour, we sit outside in Henning's courtyard, drinking wine under a full moon, chatting, discovering geckos and cockroaches, feeling for the faint breezes in the heavy night air, toasting "Majulah Singapura!", listening to some soft music, a little water now to go with the wine, chatting a bit more until finally we are calm enough to let our tired bodies go to sleep.