Friday, June 29, 2012

To Feel My Pillow Beneath my Weary Head

...was a greatly welcomed comfort after forcing myself to remain awake for over 24 hours straight. Even more welcome after the sheer hell that I went through to get back into the United States. I almost had to throw in the towel on all my life plans and settle down in Toronto, since it was there that I almost was not allowed to leave. It was all thanks to a misunderstanding caused by my dear buddies at Orbitz. For those of you who do not recall the previous hell they put me through, you can scroll back to an older blogpost entitled "RyanOrbitz" which shall catch you up on this.

Air Canada quickly moved over to my bad list- that is, the list of airlines with whom I will never soar the skies again if I can help it. Oh Air Canada, how hath thou offendeth me? Let me count the ways:

1) Flight Delay with No Updates- I am generally a punctual young lady. I was promptly seated at the departure gate indicated on my boarding pass one hour before the boarding time, which was one hour before the flight was scheduled to leave. I relaxed, caught up on the latest news with my beloved NPR iPad app, read a bit of a novel, and then glanced at my watch. It indicated 10 minutes until boarding. Therefore, I had one last bathroom run, during which I marvelled once more at the baffling fact that airport bathroom stalls open inwards, making it extremely difficult to get your bags in the loo with you. I parted with the infamous European toilets with their low water levels making them appear to be clogged at all times, and with the environmentally-friendly hand dryers which ironically do not dry your hands. Then, I was back in my seat and ready to go. Boarding time was 9:45, and that time came. And then it went. 10 minutes passed... 20.... 30... at this point, all of the passengers were desperately craning their necks to see the screen for any updates. None were made. No announcements on the PA, no carrier pigeous, no 1920s children shouting "extra! Extra! Air Canada flight delayed!". Nothing. 40 minutes pass....50.... finally, a barely audible voice rings over the PA "Air Canada flight 895- all passengers can board now". Of course, this announcement caused a mad rush of all passengers to the gate. No hope of an organized boarding process, as is typical in much of Europe.

2) A Plane that Amelia Earheart would Laugh At- seriously, the thing seemed straight out of the early days of aviation. For a flight lasting over 7 hours, you pretty much count on those little personal, back-of-seat TVs. But no. We were "fortunate" enough to have one of those projector screens commonly found in elementary school classrooms, on which John Carter was projected so out-of-focus that you felt a visit to the eye doctor needed to immediately follow. Basically, I read an entire novel on the flight and talked to my seat neighbor about the Irish economic woes.

3) Customer Service Representatives whose Previous Credits include the Witches in Macbeth- double, double, toil and... you're not getting back into the states unless you buy another ticket. That is the last thing someone who has 20 minutes to make her connection and has already paid 1500 dollars wants to hear. Actually it is something that makes tears well up behind ones eyes as all hope trickles out of a situation. Fine, there was a bit of melodrama in that last statement. But after having gone through such hell with Orbitz and being assured by their moronic staff of customer service representatives that everything was stellar and I needn't worry, maybe it's a justified melodrama. After disembarking the plane, I booked it full speed to the Air Canada counter to print my boarding pass. The lady glared at me since I clearly interrupted her oh-so-important task of picking at her nails. How dare I make her do her job! Sheesh. She nonchalantly informed me, without even looking me in the eye, that I currently did not have a ticket on that flight, and that Orbitz had exchanged the ticket. She then told me it was not her problem and to speak with United, since perhaps Orbitz reissued a new ticket through their airline. I ran over to the United representative who immediately became Glinda the good witch in my eyes- a complete juxtaposition to the evil Macbeth witch in Canada counter-ville. She helped me try to figure out what happened, and gave a detailed account of everything to me to show to evil Macbeth lady. However, when she glanced up from her nail-picking, she looked like a deer in the headlights and decided at that exact moment to take her break. All hope was lost that I would make my flight back to Denver now. The next evil Macbeth witch was a sassy, African-American woman who treated me like a piece of vermin attempting to writhe my way into her life. I explained, in complete detail, my situation. "Honey (what kind of bee makes irony-infused honey found in her tone?), you think I'm just gonna GIVE you a ticket into the US??" I looked at her, mouth literally agape. "No. I PAID for a ticket," I said angrily, pointing to my confirmation on the Orbitz print-out. She hardly even glanced at it. "You can't just get on a flight for FREE" she oh-so-insightfully informed me and then followed that with an even more assuring "there is nothing I can do for you." She almost made me cry. Thankfully, Glinda came floating back in her pink little orb and brought me some ruby slippers (metaphorical ones- they symbolize a window seat ticket on the last flight from Toronto to Denver for the day. She even ASKED me what shade of slippers- did I want a window seat or an aisle?) so I could click them together and get back home and out of the evil Oz of the Macbeth Witches (film and literature intermingling happens occasionally on my blog, sorry).

Then I went to watch Italy kick butt at soccer, and couldn't help noticing how much the German teams' coach is a clone of Tom Cruise. Maybe their loss was some sort of foreshadow to Tom Cruise losing his wife. One loses the prospect of his team winning the European Cup, one lost his "love" who was finally able to escape... I mean.... she left him for mutual disagreements...

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