What I was up to - or not up to, by Alison Behn
This week was Valentines Day, the week where everyone gains 10 pounds from boxes of chocolate and sufferers of floral allergies sadly are limited to paper hearts and cards. For some it is a lovely day, for others, a day just like any other. I prefer to fall in the latter. And so I do.
I came into Philadelphia, great place to spend V Day as it is the self proclaimed city of "brotherly love"..... Hmmm.... maybe people should examine the claims before they make them.
The early morning plane trip that commenced my week was on my nemesis, but cheap option airline - US Air (or as always sticks in my head US Scare). As it is connected with Star Alliance and thus United, I have my gold priviledges to some extent, but it doesn't afford me any special seating usually, as told by my prime location on my Monday flight - last row in the place of 33 rows. At least I had an aisle, to be on the positive side.
We all get in and sit down and I'm happy not to have anyone by me until the last second when a blonde diva boards with three bags, proceeds to stuff one of her bags in a bin she pops open (literally "stuffs"!) and proceeds to get in a verbal altercation with a man whose suit is in the bin. The screaming ensues of "you're ruining my suit" and the kurt replies of "oh, get over it, no I'm not!". She proceeds to come back to our row and puts her 3rd bag in the empty seat between us, all the while muttering, and then she finally looks at me and says "you're going to have to get out so I can slide him in". I oblige, thinking "him"? Ok - if she is so close with her bag that she's given it a gender.....
She slides "him" in and under seat in front of the empty seat between us. We sit there for a few minutes and then the airline attendant comes back, talking to another attendant. They stand by me talking and then she she bends down and starts talking to me saying "I'm going to need to see the papers for your service dog".
Ok, I know I have some issues, but I don't think people should just presume that I have so many issues that I need a service dog, right? So I respond, "I don't have a service dog?"
"Oh" and then to the woman next to me, the same thing is repeated and I suddendly realize that "him" is a dog-in-a-bag. A regular dog bag. And the blonde, hot young woman sitting next to me with all her glitz and fur and boots is the owner of the "service dog" in a bag.
So - young "handicap" woman starts a tirade with the airline attendant about "according to article 468 of law 92 it is illegal for you to ask me for those papers". Back and forth back and forth. She finally says "Of COURSE I have papers for him, but its illegal for you to ask!" and back and forth and back and forth and then she says "you look at someone like me and you judge that I don't need a service dog! Its ILLEGAL for you to ask me!"
After how many extended minutes of this, she finally gets up (literally pushing me out of the way) and goes up the 8 or 9 rows where her stuffed bag is to pull out a little tag or something that she just waves in the air and doesn't even stop to let the attendant look at.
The attendant is finally like whatever and we take off. When we land, the "handicap" woman pull out "him" and opens the bag and lets him out. "Him" is a miniature pinscher.....
REALLY??????? Please respond if I am incorrect in stating that a miniature pinscher is NOT a service dog? If you know of any reason a miniature pinscher WOULD BE a service dog, please respond as I am interested....
Incidentally, she moved the bag up on the seat and then redeposited "him" into the bag right by me. She was special, you see..... :)
The week happened. Was working with a friend so stayed with her and had some good times. We did dinner with her parents at this awesome Thai restaurant on V Day and her mom gave me a card and a gift certificate and all - Lauren's parents are too sweet - and so is Lauren..... I suppose that was the brotherly love for the week.
So here's my exciting tale out of the city of brotherly love.
Lauren drops me off at the airport about an hour before my flights starts boarding. Good thing. I get to the security line and it was literally a mile long - I've never seen a line that long! And there was no "expert" or "gold" lane - everyone was equal - ly angery.... :)
It took me -- it seriously took me - 45+ minutes to get through security. I finally got to my plane and popped right into the boarding line. We get on the plane. We push back and out onto the runway. We sit for another 45 minutes. And then the pilot tells us "we're in a line of 8 planes to take off so we should be airborne in about 15 or 20 minutes. 15-20 minutes, we've moved up and now he's back on saying "blah blah blah weight and balance, we need to pull out of line to figure it out...." AHHHHH. We pull out and we're doing a little drive by and then he adds..... "blah blah blah - they told us we could have 140 passengers and we do, but we only have a manifest of 139 names so if we go down we'd be missing someone so we have to go back to the gate and figure this out". He seriously told us that..... They were missing a name! AHHHH..... So we go back and pull in and he's like "And, because my shift is over, they're going to need to get another pilot to cover for me so it will be a little while to he gets in and gets over to this gate. AND we burned so much gas we need to refill but the truck isn't available right now. SO if you want to get off and get something to eat it will be an hour or so". I did get off, and when we finally got back on over an hour later, it turns out that they finally told everyone they had to get off..."
Long and short - I was supposed to have gotten in at about 7 pm last night - didn't get in until about 11:30 pm...
AHHHH. What I was up to this week is that - I wasn't really up! :)
Happy Bleep Bleep week! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment