“An Extra Zero”
Author’s Note: This is a Take Ten to Write story and has not been proofread for errors. If I feel inspired or if there’s interest in the story, I’ll post a revised, edited, and extended version at a later date. Happy reading!
Prompt: Bonus.
So… I might’ve overestimated the amount I got for my New Year’s bonus…
Apparently, my mind added an extra zero to the end of the number I received. At the time, I did think that it was a bit excessive. However, I did put in a lot of extra hours that I never got paid for, so I just assumed that my boss was thanking me for it.
Anyway, I started making big plans for this nice vacation. Okay, not nice. Luxurious. Beautiful. Amazing. Incredible. I don’t think I need to continue. It was supposed to be the vacation that people only ever dream of taking. And I thought that I could make that dream come true.
Oh, and I came close. I got so far as to book my flights, my hotel reservations, everything. Everything was prepared to perfection. I planned for everything that could go wrong and I figured that I still had money left over for some nice souvenirs for the rest of the family.
It wasn’t until the day before my flight left when I realized my mistake.
It turns out that a single zero can make the difference between a perfect vacation and being broke. Unfortunately, I added a zero in my mind instead of subtracting it.
But enough about that. I don’t like thinking about what could’ve been. Instead, let me tell you about this new vacation that I panic-planned so that I wouldn’t lose all my money on my flight.
Instead of going to stay in the most luxurious hotel in Japan, I ended up staying with the family of my old high school friend. Sure, we weren’t super close, but we were close enough that I wasn’t too bothered to ask her if I could stay with her over twenty years later.
Actually, it ended up being really nice staying with them. I got an in-depth look at the culture in Japan rather than just being a tourist looking in on their lifestyle. It was definitely different than what I’m used to when I’m vacationing, but it was educational and fun nonetheless.
After a week in Japan, I flew to Australia. I spent the week there hopping around to different places; basically, I just looked for the cheapest accommodations that I could find. Again, I wasn’t treated as a tourist, which was nice, as I got to explore parts of the country that I probably never would’ve seen if I was going on all the tours to the most touristy places.
My next week was spent in India. This one was a bit trickier, and I ended up–by luck–staying with this incredibly nice family that I happened to run into at the airport. See, I wasn’t able to book any last-minute accommodations in India, so I truly was lucky that I was able to find somewhere to stay with zero advanced notice.
And then I came back home. Sure, it wasn’t the dream trip that I was expecting, but it was still an exciting and educational trip.
Still, next time I’ll make extra sure to check how many zeros there are in my bonus…
Final Comments: I had trouble with this one. I found that it didn’t flow very easily and I had a hard time coming up with ideas for what to write next. Definitely not one of my better stories.
Overall Rating: 😒
