is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$200 Donkey-Ass Poorer, Pissed Off.
$200 Donkey-Ass Poorer, Pissed Off.
There are lots of funny little things I�ve been meaning to add to the diary for the past week, but it has been a work-packed week, and then I had to have a terrible terrible travel day, about which I will now tell you, in order to exorcise it from the rage-center of my brain.
I left Amherst on Tuesday at noon, got to the Hartford airport around 1:30. A blizzard started right as I pulled into the park-and-fly airport place. The lock on my car door froze open, so I had to blow on it for quite awhile to get it to be able to lock. In the meantime I was covered with wet huge snowflakes. I was wearing my lightweight coat instead of the boyfriend-parka because I was on my way to Texas and California. And for some reason the shuttle van that usually picks me up instantaneously and right at my car at the park-and-fly place was nowhere to be seen, so I started walking toward the paying area. No people in sight, not even in the paybooths. It was like I was the last person left on earth, me and a bunch of cars. Then the shuttle pulled in and let me board, and I was THANKFUL. But also cold, and wet.
When I got to the airport of course all the flights were cancelled. So I got in line to try to see what new flight strategy I should undertake. An hour later I still was in line and they decided to let my flight go. So I boarded the plane, and made it to Dulles/Washington DC airport, but not without a rather terrifying landing. Once at Dulles it was clear that I had not only missed my connection, but that there were no other connections for me to take, even though the weather in DC was fine. I waited in line at customer service for 45 minutes. During that time the last flight to Chicago that might get me to Dallas left. So they said I had to stay the night. Except they didn�t have to pay for it, because I was late because of weather. I tried pointing out that it was the pace and lack of help at customer service that had actually rendered me unable to travel that evening, but that didn�t work. The lady gave me a slip of paper with a phone number for hotels that give good rates to people stuck in town because of weather. I called, and the only two rooms they had left were at hotels without shuttle service, each about 30 minutes away. Those hotels were $80 per room. So I stopped at the travel advisory desk and they gave me a list of local hotels. I started calling them. They were all booked. I finally found a place ten minutes away with shuttle service, but its rooms were ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY DOLLARS. I didn�t really have a choice, however, because my only other option was to take the $80 room with a $50 cab ride each way. And that is how I spent my whole spring break budget on something that SUCKED DONKEY ASS.
I went out to �shuttle stop 2A� to wait for the shuttle, which I had been told would take ten minutes. It took twenty. In the meantime I was actually afraid I was getting frostbite. It was really, really, REALLY cold, I had the non-heavy coat on, bare knees, and the winds were really strong. (Question: why would an airport in terrible weather DC build waiting structure with no wind breaks? Why?!)
Adding insult to injury: 1) the hotel did not even have room service. I was hungry and near crying, and ate a pizza from Papa John�s. DONKEY ASS. 2) there was no hand lotion or hair conditioner in the bathroom, and no fluffy robes, 3) the hotel charges $200 for a one night stay, has no room service, and MADE ME PAY $6 FOR A TOOTHBRUSH AND TOOTHPASTE. (Did I mention the airline couldn�t find my luggage?) I had so far been nice to everyone I had encountered that day, no matter how unconcerned they were with the incompetence and inhumanity of the system for which they slave, but to this latest of my miseries I simply had to reply (in speaking voice, not yelling voice): �You simply do not know how to run a hotel that charges $200 per room. Apparently you are living in a world where there is no decency.�
So I had flown from Hartford to Dulles, whence I was supposed to fly directly to Dallas. Turns out, the only way I could get from Dulles to Dallas the next day would be to fly up to Chicago and then back down to Dallas. So I did that. What else could I do? When I got to Dallas (finally, around 1pm, well into the one day I had to spend with Adam, August and Kate), my luggage did not arrive with me. Customer service had assured me it would arrive in Hartford with me, because luggage doesn�t get sent on planes unless the person is on the plane. I went and asked baggage-man to help me find my luggage, and he began asking me why it was missing. I said I had flown in from Hartford, missed a connection, been rerouted through Chicago, and now was here. Then he started telling me how the flight from Hartford had been on time. I looked at him like, �do you really want to go there with me right now?� Apparently it was not conceivable to him that I had spent the night in Washington DC for $200. I guess that�s OK, since it�s hardly conceivable to me. But I whipped out my yelling voice, about how incompetent and unhelpful every single person I had spoken with had been, about how the woman last night had promised that my luggage was accounted for and that all the details of my journey were in the computer, and about (add 10,000 tiresome details that I won�t impose on you), and how I am never flying United Airlines again (except of course I am, because that is my return ticket back to Hartford, and thus I am their bitch).
Deep breaths. But now I�m at the Driskill Hotel. Here they give you robes to lounge in. The rooms are super cute. I have free Ethernet and a huge bathtub and a big comfortable bed. And, in the meantime I spent most of a day in Dallas with Adam, August and Kate. I slept in a cute room in their huge beautiful sunny house, ate yummy Vietnamese food, and gave August his tiny Amherst college Tshirt. Then I took Greyhound from Dallas to Austin (whoa. Greyhound in Texas. Cadre of Colorful Characters!), and had dinner with Ashley and JC here in Austin, a dinner which included some much needed (for all of us) Margaritas. I hadn�t seen them for three years, and it was really good, and really fun, to catch up.
I�ll be at a conference on Friday and Saturday, and then on Sunday I�m off to San Francisco for a week. Yay.
1:00 a.m. - March 11, 2005
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
