So, I went to Atlanta for some business meetings this week. Flew down on Tuesday morning and was to return on Wednesday evening. Five of us from the Chantilly office were going to the Atlanta office to work on a big integration project. The other four people flew on Delta because it had an available flight back to Dulles on Wednesday that was much earlier (4pm) than United (7pm). Since I needed to stay on for a few hours to do some other work , I booked myself on United. I’m a United frequent flyer and I TRY to be loyal except where it makes no sense ($) to do so. In this case, I needed to stay anyway.
Our meetings ended at lunchtime on Wednesday and I headed off to an office to work on a different project with my colleague and friend, Jeff. We were able to finish up a small project we had in three hours---if we’d have done it back and forth over the phone and e-mail it would have taken days. We were both glad to get it done and get it done efficiently—even though we had some issues with the new version of Microsoft Word we’re using. Suffice it to say that the words “FINAL SHOWING MARKUP” should be eradicated from the English language, in our opinions. Jeff did the hard work of figuring all that out though….he sent it to someone who knew what the hell they were doing. By the end of the day it was all finished and ready to send to our customer.
I’m set up to receive calls using this system called Easy Update from United where an automated message comes to your cell or e-mail giving you flight status information. While Jeff and I were busy doing our work at around 2pm, Easy Update called and let me know that my 7pm flight was delayed to 8pm. No biggie. We keep working.
About an hour later, my friend Easy calls again to say that the big bird will now not be launching until 9pm. I knew from speaking to Bob and some folks back at the office that the weather at Dulles was crazy. Tornado sightings, horizontal rain, etc. In fact, the laboratory got evacuated to the basement at one point. Connor’s daycare is in the building and he HATES even the mere discussion of tornadoes or hurricanes, so I’m now feeling bad mommy guilt that I’m not there at a time when I am sure he’s having a major five-year old freak out. At this point, I start taking the delay seriously and begin considering my options:
1. Ride the wave. Be zen. Notice irritants and accept what comes. All that Tao shit.
2. Call United. Hope that someone in the Mumbai out-sourced service center knows what is going on. Don’t laugh. Stop. Seriously. They usually are pretty good. Really. United must have some very good trainers and expectations. I’m seldom unhappy when my calls get routed there vs. stateside where I usually end up with some snippy part-timer in a mid-west call center.
3. Bag it. Get a hotel. Call my friend Wendy in Dunwoody. Fly out in the morning.
For awhile, I go with #1. Dr. Wayne Dyer and Lao Tsu would have been proud of me for about 43.6 minutes. Then, my zen cracks and I go to #2.
#2 works out extraordinarily well. (See—I told you not to laugh before.) They tell me from Mumbai that the problem with my flight is not the weather. The weather by then will be fine at Dulles. The problem is equipment. The plane is stuck somewhere else and won’t be in Atlanta until 9pm but its looking like its about to leave wherever it is and I should be good. So, I am promptly back at #2 and my zen is flowing with the infinite.
Now, its about 4pm. My zen just gets better when Jeff, southern gentleman and kind soul that he is takes pity on my abandoned ass and says he’ll take me to dinner to kill time rather than leave me alone with my destructive thoughts for five long hours. Yippeee!!! This is welcome news because I only have one movie on my iPod which would only kill 2 hours. Jeff is a good guy—I realize and appreciate that he’d much rather be home in “short pants” (as he likes to call them) with his dog and a drink than be driving me around the Atlanta metro region. But, I’m no dummy and too damn bad. I’d much rather be with a human I like than sitting on the airport floor like some loser with my iPod. So, off we go.
We go to the airport and check my bag. It’s probably around 4:45. Bye bye sweet luggage.
The airport is about an hour from Jeff’s house. He lives north of 11 on the clock that is the highway circle of Atlanta and the airport is at 5. So, we’re in a geography that he seldom visits except to get in and out of the airport. He suggests that we dine at “Harold’s Barbecue”, which, based on his description is someplace that he remembers fondly and that has good pig. Jeff is a polished guy—but like so many of the people I truly enjoy, underneath that there is a genuine authentic person unlike the polish. I like people whose surface needs to be scratched to get at them. The underneath is a guy who’d rather be out in the country with his dog and his family than running around at stuffy business meetings. He’s a southern man who loves NASCAR and I’m not gonna turn down a pork barbecue recommendation from that source.
We head there. It is good. ‘Nuff said. Oh. Except that the “Harold’s Barbecue sign had one of those letter boards underneath it with the words “Shalom Israel”. Inexplicable at a pork barbeque place. All hail trayfe.
While enjoying said pig and company, that bastard Easy calls me again. Does he never have anything good to say? Now, I’m delayed until 10 pm. I call Bob and I discuss revised options:
1. Ride the &%$#@* wave. Be @$%^ zen. Bullshit.
2. Call the rat-bastard liars in Mumbai.
3. Get a hotel room.
Bob suggests #3 but I decide that I’m going to be hopeful and go with #1. We leave Harold’s and go to the airport. On the way there, guess who calls? That’s right, it’s the Big Easy. I’m now delayed to 11pm.
Jeff is now getting serious about all of this but he’s really not trying to tell me what to do—again, a nice soul with sympathy and kind suggestions. He knows better than to get me fired up at this point--he's known me long enough to know that its not pretty when it happens so he's being really calm. He’s focused on how the hell I’m going to get my checked bag back if I have to go to a hotel and I have to say that I hadn’t thought much about that but now that he mentions it OH MY GOD I HAVE NO CLEAN UNDERWEAR. Momentary internal freak out ensues.
I bid Jeff goodbye with thanks—probably not effusive enough considering that he gave up his evening to babysit me, but I’m in the middle of the underwear freak out so I’m distracted. I go to the curbside and ask the really nice guy if there is any way to get my bag back for option #3 and he laughs. It’ s a sympathetic laugh, not a mocking one, so I don’t beat him to death there on the curb with my huge Coach handbag.
I head to the United counter. They say that I should get the hell out of here any way I can---the flight hasn’t left its point of origin yet and its now so late that everyone will miss their connections and it will probably be cancelled. They endorse my ticket over to AirTran for a 9:20pm flight and put in a “message” to move my luggage from United to AirTran. I head to the gates.
Security at ATL is crazy ass crazy. Very organized, but HUGE and busy. They do a good job considering. Because I changed airlines with a checked bag I get a nice little “four alarm” marker on my boarding pass and am subject to the full security screening- “Female assist on Lane 20” for my pat down. (“Female assist” just sounds dirty, doesn’t it? They should reconsider that terminology…) My pat down goes fine and its lucky I’m self confident person who doesn’t mind my underwires being palpated in front of 4,000 passengers by a giant, manly woman.
I head to the gates and settle in to watch “Juno”. At around 8:40, the time I’d expect the gate sign to change to read “Washington Dulles-9:20pm” it instead changes to something like “Kansas City-10:55pm”. Uh Oh. Run to Departures board. We are cancelled. Cancelled. Eliminated. Eradicated. Terminated. Disposed of. Destroyed.
Gate agent is on the phone with her friend and her final words are “ I don’t care. I’m going to dinner.” At this point I say “What’s up with the Dulles flight?” She looks me dead on and says “I have no idea. Its cancelled. Some supervisor will be here in 20 – 30 MINUTES to help you.” What? Man behind me says “What?” She repeats her mantra. “I have no idea. Its cancelled. Some supervisor will be here in 20 – 30 MINUTES to help you.” But she adds “You all might as well take a seat”. Bitch.
I go to AirTran customer service which is clearly an oxymoron. Wait awhile to find out that if you’ve checked baggage, you can’t get out . You’re trapped. I’m actually okay with that at this point (my zen has regrouped) and I start calling hotels while I wait for an agent. I finally get to the counter and tell her that first flight out in the morning will work for me. She says OK and books it and puts in another “message” to pull my luggage and says that I should go to baggage claim and pick it up. No prob! I have a hotel nearby and I’m resigned to my fate.
I get on the escalator down to the train to the main terminal and I call Bob. He asks me what time my flight is in the morning. I’m not sure so I pull out my boarding pass and discover that it is at 1:50pm. THAT IS NOT MORNING. Maybe she could have mentioned that? Why did I not ask? Why did I assume? Why? Why? Why?
I go back up the escalator and return to the oxymorons. Different agent tells me that she has no idea why this happened but that they’re adding a flight in the morning—just call them in an hour or so and something will shake out. Back down the escalator.
At baggage claim I wait for a bit and no bags are arriving—it is 9:20pm now. Head to the AirTrain luggage oxymorons and am faced with about 10 other Dulles refugees who tell me that they have been told that our baggage cannot be retrieved for SEVERAL HOURS and that they’ve been told to leave without it. DUH. If we could leave without it, then why couldn’t we get on those other flights to Reagan National that leave in 40 minutes? I now feel the snap crackle pop on the final remaining thread of my erstwhile zen and demand a supervisor. I move to the front of the pack and calmly but assertively say :
“Sir, I understand the weather is beyond your control. But we were all told that we could not rebook on the two available options later if we wanted to fly with our luggage and that our luggage would be pulled. If you are not resourced to pull that luggage, that is within your control. Its one small plane—all the baggage is being offloaded and moved. It can’t be that hard to get ours up here. Perhaps the best solution for all of us is for you to go downstairs and help retrieve it ? Or, get us all moved to a Reagan flight and shuttle us over there so we don’t miss it.”
Two people clapped. One hooted. A few of them diverted their eyes in horror. But, we got our bags in 30 minutes. And I watched more "Juno" while I waited.
10pm and I head to the taxi stand. I have no idea where the Sheraton Gateway is located, but I know its not far. The nice lady at the stand asks me if I’m paying with a credit card, which I am. At this airport, they imprint the card at the stand and you take the slip with you, add the total, sign it and give it to the driver. Good idea and it keeps the drivers moving. Cab arrives, I pile in and tell him where I’m headed. A full on "Amazing Race" foreign taxi driver incident now begins. His head whips around and his crazed bloodshot eyes bore holes into my skull. In barely discernable English he says “Oh. Come on. You must be crazy woman. Take shuttle!” I’m in the car. My bag is in the car. I am tired. I say “NO”. He takes off and then 100 yards later screeches the car to halt near a taxi guy and screams “I need local. This is crap. I almost get into fight with you. I need local!” I don’t understand any of this but am beginning to be concerned what my dismembered torso will look like when he dumps it off.
We arrive at the hotel in about 4 minutes. The fare is $6. Though frightened of him, I do feel bad about the proximity but how would I have known? So, I give him a $9 tip to compensate him. I get out with the completed slip and begin to hand it to him at which point he TOTALLY LOSES HIS MIND. He bats it out of my hand and begins to literally jump up and down saying “NO NO NO NO NO. I do not take this. I do not take. You crazy. You crazy. You know what they take from me? YOU KNOW WHAT THEY TAKE FROM ME?.” Now, I’m a little more secure because the big, handsome valets are marching over to kick his ass and I say. “Too bad. Your problem. Talk to the airport. I made it clear that I was paying with a credit card.” And I then pick up the slip and attempt to hand it to him again. He rips it from me , shoves it in my face and says “I DO NOT TAKE” at which point I say “ You DO take or you take nothing” and I walk away with the big handsome valley protecting me. I felt like Julia Roberts with bodyguard. He’s apologizing and complimenting me for not freaking out. The taxi driver circles the car as if to follow us but then rethinks it, slams his fists on the roof of his car, gets in and squeals wheels out of there. Much jubillant discussion is had in the lobby with the witnesses of the crazy tax-driver incident. More compliments are paid to my level headedness and sympathy is given. I have a gin and tonic.
I head up to my room and face my earlier problem. I HAVE NO CLEAN UNDERWEAR. So, I turn into a Girl Scout and wash my panties in the sink and hang them under a lamp to dry. Sick.
Watched the end of "Juno" and passed out from exhaustion. Got on a flight at 9:20 am the next morning and made it home.
I’m sure that travelers have things like this happen to them every day. I’m sure I’m not special. But I’m also sure that in the future ATTENTION WILL BE PAID to extra underwear!!
