Anyone who knows me can tell you I’m probably the most patient person you’ll ever meet. I don’t mind standing in line for things, I can wait to be seated at a restaurant, you know, all the things that probably piss you off. I can go to crowded shopping malls on Christmas Eve and have no problem at all with the crowds. Over the years I’ve become a rather spectacular crowd walker. I can zip in and out of people at airports, baseball games and any other crowd that happens to gather in my presence.
Anyway, way off topic, sorry. Patience is what we were discussing, right? So I leave Naples last night at 1:00 in the morning and drive up to Orlando, which is a little over three hours if you don’t run into a police block because of a car flipped over in Fort Myers like I did. My flight left Orlando at 6:00 am and I pulled into the rental car return at 5:00. I’m quite exhausted and can’t find anyone from Avis to check the car in. two more cars pull in behind me and still no guy. I’m starting to do my little toe tap thing cuz I’m getting nervous about missing my flight.
Finally the guy comes out and goes to one of the folks that pulled in after me. What’s up with that? I stroll over to where he is and mention that I happen to be the first car in line and he tells me he’ll be with me in a minute. Suffice it to say that I’m not really becoming a fan of this guy. I pull myself into myself, if you know what I mean, and ask him if I can just leave the car cuz I gotta do my OJ thing to get to the terminal. He says fine with a little huff and off I go, leaving my sunglasses in the car as I leave.
When I get to the United terminal to get my boarding pass there’s quite a line. I went up to the desk, interrupted two women who were chatting and asked if I needed to be in the line because my flight was scheduled to leave in less than 45 minutes. One of the women says, no problem, get in line and if the flight time gets too close they’ll pull those on the flight out of line and take care of us. Works for me, so I get in line.
By the way, I’m at O’Hare in Chicago waiting for my connecting flight and I’m sitting in the terminal. Across from me is a row of chairs facing me. Two HUGE guys just sat down with McDonald’s bags and are literally pigging out. No kidding, ones on the phone with catsup on his cheek and a couple fries hanging out of his grill while talking and the other just inhaled a Big Mac. I’m not kidding, it’s gone and there's no proof it ever existed. I think the box is gone too.
Again, way off topic. I finally get up to the do it yourself kiosk to get my boarding pass. God, I wish that guy would wipe the catsup off his face. I put my credit card into the machine and it tells me it’s too late to get a seat on this flight and I could pay 75.00 to go standby. What? So I say, in my normal intimidating voice, I think we have a problem here. So the very same lady that told me it wouldn’t be a problem waiting in line comes over to say I was seven minutes late to get a seat. I smile my most diplomatic grin and say, but you just told me 20 minutes ago that they would pull me out of line it got to be time. She said she’d made numerous announcements and there was nothing she could do.
Two things here. No she didn’t and even if she did the attitude simply wasn’t working for me. There was a Chinese couple that had been in front of me in the line and I had helped them to somewhat communicate to the people they had questions of during the wait for the kiosks. They happened to be using the kiosk next to mine and I asked them if they heard any announcements. All they did was shake their heads no. I nodded to the lady in a type of “see?” thing and she said she’d see what she could do. Now, the beauty of this is that the lady from United had no idea that the Chinese couple didn’t understand a word I said but, no harm no foul, I needed to get on the plane.
She comes back from wherever she had to go and says that she’ll do it this time but she really shouldn’t and blah, blah, blah. As she’s talking she’s getting louder and more snide with each word. I asked if she thought it was right that she was yelling at me for following her instructions and she said that I should have gotten there earlier.
I said something like, well we should be past that now because we’re both standing here and she’s yelling at me. She said that I’ve just wasted five minutes and she could have gotten me the ticket already. I wanted to tell her that multitasking was obviously not one of her strengths but I didn’t want to push my luck. What the hell is going on here? I started doing the toe tap thing again and her way of getting back at me was to hand me my two boarding passes and luggage check ticket without an envelope. I wanted to tell her that I was a United Airlines Employee Shopper that was testing the staff but I had a plane to catch. Bitch.
Awe jeez. Catsup face is sleeping and he’s still got a French fry hanging out of his mouth. Don’t they have skycaps or someone who can come and wipe that crap off his face?
So after being yelled at because I was probably going to miss my plane I finally get to my seat and it’s 10 minutes before we’re supposed to take off and I’m on the verge of boiling over. I’m tired, I’m grumpy and I’ve got a million things in my head that I wanted to tell that lady but I couldn’t because there was no time. It was at this point that the Captain came on the intercom and said there was a problem with one of the computers and we’d be taking off in about an hour. So we sat on the plane for just over an hour before things were fixed and we finally took off. I think my adversary probably knew and was just making me do this dance to piss me off. Bitch.
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