My worst nightmare of flying is not of plane crashes or being stuck next to awful smelling overly large and friendly man but actually missing my flight. Perhaps that is what I loved best about living at home, my always punctual father was the time keeper and always had us arriving on schedule.
My 7:30am flight out of San Jose had me setting my alarm at both 4:30am and 5:00am to gather my luggage and taxi over the short distance with plenty of time to spare. When I woke that morning I was shocked to see the sun out. It didn’t hit me at first but when I punched over my alarm clock to make it glow and saw the numbers 8:26 glaring back at me my only thought was and spoken words were a minute long string of profanities. Followed by a jump out of bed, shaking, crying, getting dressed manuever. Needless to say, it was not my proudest moment.
Luckily my first flight was on Southwest so I got online and almost fainted when I saw the next flight went up $230 in price. So I got on the phone to call and was told that if I get to the airport in 45 minutes then I could get standby for the next flight but I had to hurry. I was simultaneously running out the door and calling for a cab and praying for grace. I was met at Southwest by a good sized pacific islander man. Between him and the other girl working, a petite asian girl who looked about my age, I was glad to have him. Men tend to a be a bit more sensitive to emotional women. Us women have no mercy on each other.
He started working it all out and getting my on the 10:10 direct flight to Midway in Chicago but an error popped up and he had to call is counterpart up for help.
Oh ****.
Like I foreshadowed earlier, she was not having my frazzled state and I overslept excuse. Her response was something like… you were misinformed (glare)… you have to pay the extra $ (glare)… you obviously don’t understand what I’m saying. (glare)
As soon as she walked away the larger man looked at me said he would call his supervisor and then I broke out in tears. Not just little tears. Alligator tears. I looked like Paris Hilton when she got sentenced to 48 minutes in jail. I did not use these tears to get what I wanted, like you might be assuming. I was literally distraught. But like most macho men, his Achilles heel is a woman’s tears.
Supervisor came and together they worked through the system as I hiccuped on the other side of the counter. Standby on the following flight it is.
Grace.
As I left I gave two huge thank you and left the mean girl out. It was my feeble attempt at sticking it to the man.
More to come of my weekend in Chicago but until then, look at my shameless and unsponsored plug for Zuca luggage.
Follow my adventures at twitter.com/danidotnoah
