I have spent the last few days sifting through 11,284 messages of itinerary drafts, phantom bank transfers and a seven-tab Google Sheet that only its creator has ever opened, and I came out the other side with a thousand-yard stare and the words “PayNow tonight” burned into the back of my eyelids.
You are not a travel group. You are not even five friends who enjoy travelling. You are five adults who have been standing in the same departure hall since January, staring at a board that says DELAYED, clutching S$590 of Scoot tickets and agreeing with each other that honestly, it is a very nice hall.
Let’s open the case files.
The Accused: Five Adults, Zero Boarding Passes
Bernice: “Mother” / The Spreadsheet Dictator Nobody Obeys
Bernice is not the organiser of this group. She is its unpaid civil service, its central bank and its only working organ, and she runs all three out of a Google Sheet with a tab called Plan C (if Rahul), the single most accurate forecast produced in Singapore this year. The others call her Mother, which is what you call a woman once you have decided she will be doing your admin until she dies. As she announced one Monday, to four people who had already muted her:
