Traveling
I’m back from my sojourn in Portland, OR with Mr. Garter’s family. The family time was great; the transit less so. I knew nothing good could come of flying from Newark to Portland via Atlanta. And I was right. The first plane was delayed, so I missed my connection despite sprinting half a mile through the airport with my luggage and arriving at the gate five minutes before departure time. I’m convinced the gate agent sold my seat, and those of my four fellow athletes trying to make the same flight, and didn’t have the cojones to admit it.
Him: “Sorry, we closed the door five minutes prior to departure time.”
Me, looking at the clock on the gate information screen: “But it’s 6:20 right now. The plane leaves at 6:25. Can’t you open the door again?”
Him: “Um, that time isn’t really relevant. The next plane leaves at 9:33.”
The official airport time displayed on the information screens at every gate isn’t relevant? I sat around for three hours knitting furiously and composing angry letters of Austenian eloquence to Delta, and I watched four other planes depart late because they waited for passengers on connecting flights. When we finally did board a Portland-bound aircraft, the other woman from the Newark flight was seated across the aisle from me. She watched me poking along on my yellow socks and asked, “Are you knitting all kinds of stories into those?” I looked down at my knitting and laughed:
See that wonky section a few inches down from the cuff? That’s the part I knitted in the Atlanta airport. Stories indeed: Deranged Woman Mauls Unhelpful and Testicularly Challenged Delta Gate Agent with Size 0 Addi Circulars During Peak Holiday Travel.
Posted: November 29th, 2005 at 9:24 am
Oh man, I hope you get something out of that missed flight! You should call them to complain.
I liked the story at the bottom. I hope your socks recover!
Posted: November 29th, 2005 at 9:55 am
Argh airline travel….it makes me nervous just to think about making connections. Prepare yourself for a novel…
My horror story involves misreading the time of departure (read the time it arrived rather than the time it departed) and missing my flight out of Lisbon. The nasty British Air man manning the counter that day would not let me reschedule for a flight the next day unless I paid the $100 rescheduling fee….which I would have in a heartbeat if my wallet containing all my ability to get more money had not been stolen a couple of days earlier leaving me with ~$101 dollars….so I pay the fee and have nowhere to stay, othing to eat etc for 24 hrs or I find someway else to pay the fee. the agent had no heart and did not sway, he suggested contacting my travel agent but see it was sunday so no one was open. I broke down and got a phone card and called by future hubby who went down to the airport and tried to pay British airways directly but no they couldn’t accept his money for the fee. I wandered the streets of Lisbon very distraught. I called by parents in NZ, started crying realised that the call was costing me ~$5 per minute and hung up (all my poor dad could tell my mum was that I was in Lisbon, had my wallet stolen and couldn’t fly out…she was not impressed). I attended a church service in portugese in a beautiful tile covered church and then it came to me NZ was 12 hrs ahead of portugal so my parents travel agent would open at 9am monday which would be 9pm sunday, fax me the receipt at the youth hostel (which promised to keep their office open until it arrived) and I would be free…I then had about 1 minute left on the phone card for my parents to get the relevant info before we were cut off, but it worked.
The next day I proudly produced my faxed receipt to the woman manning the counter and expalined how I had managed to get around their stupid mean rule…and she said ‘why dodn’t you ask for the manager, as long as you had a police report we would have waived the fee’
Posted: November 29th, 2005 at 11:53 am
Traveling over the holidays is a nightmare! What a horrible gate agent ~ someone must have slipped some Nasty into his Thanksgiving Turkey. I’ll be traveling around Xmas, so we’ll compare stories then.
Posted: November 29th, 2005 at 11:54 am
Poor Sarah!! Holiday travel can be infuriating! Aren’t you glad to be back in NYC?
Posted: November 29th, 2005 at 12:05 pm
Hey at least you get a story out of your hectic travels…well maybe the socks are the ones who get the real story. It’s unfair, but I always take my frustration out on my knitting – especially on the subway!
Posted: November 29th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
Travelling is such a bitch! I waited for hours at Penn Station the day before Thanksgiving last year: they had an electrical problem preventing trains from coming in or out. So people were pouring into Penn Station, but nobody was going anywhere. A nightmare.
But your socks are lookin’ good! So, do you think 2 at the same time is the way to go?
Posted: December 2nd, 2005 at 7:48 pm
I hate bad travel stories. It always makes me realize it can happen to me. I haven’t had any horror stories lately but when I do, I’ll share. At least you got some extra knitting time even if it isn’t all that relaxing and they might be holding in some anxiety.