Art is Life is Art: Susan Reep Photo Art

It’s true.  It took 24 hours of navigating United’s Friendly Skies for me to fly coast to coast.  I usually like United Airlines, but this time, they get an F.  Not even a D-.

I try to leave Orlando

• First, shuttle from Royal Palm Resort, or whatever the heck it was called, at Universal Orlando.  Trip was smooth.
• Get travel update notice on my phone: flight will now depart at 4:45 pm.  OK, the connection should be fine.
• Get tired of sitting in the airport because I am already exhausted from the heat and the fun.
• Get travel update notice on my phone: flight will now depart at 4:50.  Just a five-minute difference.   Connecting flight still looks OK.
• Wonder why I can’t find a Starbucks in the Orlando Airport.  Surely they have one.  I must be in the wrong place.
• Get travel update notice on my phone that flight will now depart at 5:00 pm.  Now I’m in trouble although the United agent assures me I’ll make the connecting flight.  I am not so sure.
• Oops! Another update.  The plane will now be leaving at 5:40.  I’m screwed.  But not too worried because surely there is a flight from Denver to Bakersfield late at night.
• Hear thunder.  See lightning. The storm I hoped to see happened.  One of the lightning bolts lasted so long I could have taken out my camera, put it on the tripod, and captured the moment.
• Dang.  There’s that little jingle from my phone again.  Travel update notice – flight delayed until 6:15.   This day is getting just a little too long and I’m still in Orlando.
• The thunder storm continues and I get another update: flight will now be leaving at 6:25.  Not only that, but it’s listed like this:
• Estimated departure time 6:25 p.m. on time.  Stop right there. If departure times are estimates how can you be on time? Or, you will always be on time.  Brother.  Irritation is setting in.

I actually leave Orlando, over seven hours after arriving at the airport.

• We have an airplane! They have switched us to another gate and we have a plane that wasn’t scheduled for us.  I don’t know why our plane was late – and it was late, way before the thunder storm.
• OK, the seats are three across and I’m by the window.  Not good, since I am a frequent restroom user.  I basically become dehydrated on travel days because I limit liquids for that very reason.  But still, I have to drink something.
• The man in the center seat proceeds to cross his legs and extend his elbows over the arm rests on both sides.  In other words, he’s infringing on my already small space.  I try to engage him in conversation – just enough to say, “I’m so-and-so.”  That’s all.  I don’t want to be best friends, but he barely looks at me.  No, he doesn’t look at me at all.
• I need to sleep but I can’t – I don’t like touching strangers which is one reason I attempted to introduce myself.
• I see the picture on his computer desktop.  It’s he and his wife and they look very happy.  I can’t relate the picture to the man sitting next to me.

We reach Denver

• It’s finally time to land in Denver.  I’ve received an update telling me my flight has been rescheduled for 6:15 the following morning! Which means if I am lucky enough to get to a hotel by 10:30 or so, I could possibly have 6 hours of sleep.  Inconvenient, but surely United will give me meal and hotel vouchers.
• We deplane.  I reach for my things and they are wet.  My Chinese silk glasses case is soaked.  My brand new blue Harry Potter pillow with Hedwig is wet.  And everything smells like coffee.  I look under the seat and there is a tipped over coffee drink.  I ask the girl in that seat, “Did you have a coffee drink?” She thinks and finally says yes.  I tell her, “It spilled and it made my things wet – my brand new pillow from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, my purse and all my stuff. “  She says she is sorry.  I just look at her.  She says she is sorry again.  And again, I just look at her.  I’m about to keel over from fatigue, and I can’t say, “Don’t worry about it, it’s OK.”  Because it’s not OK.

United fails Customer Relations 101

• Most of the passengers obediently trudge to the customer relations desk.  It’s my turn and I’m barely hanging on.
• I say to the representative, “I just want to let you know in advance that I’m on the edge with fatigue and I might cry.” He smirks.  Yes, actually smirks.
• I ask for my hotel voucher and something for meals.  He says I don’t get one because weather delayed the flight.  I say that before the weather had occurred, my flight had been changed three times and I wasn’t going to make my connection.
• He says, well, that’s not what “they” told him.
• He hands me a discount coupon for a hotel.  I say, “At least I can get my luggage” and he says, no I cannot.
• Why I ask.  Isn’t it coming off the airplane? It is but it has to go to a special area for rescheduled flights or something.  I can get it but it’ll take about three hours.
• I’m reeling. I drop the discount coupon with exasperation and he says, “Don’t throw that coupon at me.”  What?  Idiot.  I didn’t throw it at you.  He snatches it away and says well if you don’t want it.  But I do want it.
• Once more I ask, isn’t there any way to get me to Bakersfield tonight?  No, there certainly is not.

The Comfort Inn

• I go to the hotel phone bank and call one after the other.  Full.  Full.  Full.  Full. Finally I arrive at the Comfort Inn.  They are not full.  I book a room, non-smoking with two queen beds, and am instructed to go out Door 508  and go to the third island.
• I do this.  Vans pass by.  The Holiday Inn and Garden Suites, etc. etc. go by several times and I’m wondering about the Comfort Inn.  A van-type of thing goes by twice with Comfort Inn on it, but there are lots of things on it, and it parks not in the hotel area (and there’s plenty of space) but in the Off Site Parking area.  So I figure the Comfort Inn sign is just advertising.
• On the third pass, after standing almost an hour waiting, I run up to the other area and ask if he goes to the Comfort Inn.  He says yes.  I get in.
• We pass freeway exits with brightly lit hotels and I assume we’ll get off at one of those but no, we get off in an area that is barely lighted, and the hotel looks like a warehouse.  There is no sign of food, no coffee shop or even McDonalds close by.
• I walk in. The lobby smells funny.  There’s a guy at the desk getting keys because he can’t get his door to open, but I think it’s because he’s drunk.
• The carpet has holes in it.
• I check in.  I mention that the driver doesn’t stop outside door 508 in the hotel area, and the clerk says, “No, he stops outside door 503.”  I said, “Oh.  I was told 508.”  He tells me that the airport people are always getting that wrong.  But the person at the other end of the Comfort Inn phone told me 508, and he seems to be the only employee in the hotel.  I let it go.
• I ask if he has a razor and toothbrush.  He does, but he has no toothpaste.  Whatever.

I learn things

• Calling something the Comfort Inn doesn’t make it comfortable.
• Calling tissue heavenly soft doesn’t take away the feel of sandpaper.
• Calling soap finely milled doesn’t mean it smells good.  In fact, it leaves such a residue that I wash with the shampoo.
• A free toothbrush isn’t worth the manufacture.  I put it in my mouth and begin to exert pressure to clean my teeth, and the stupid thing bends in half.
• I learn that the Comfort Inn vending machines have chips and candy bars.  I get a candy bar for dinner.

Carry-on bags

I put my meds in my carry-on just in case.  I should put in a nightgown and some toiletries but I didn’t have room for that.   Remember that I have been at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  And I took with me things that might melt and things that are fragile.This is what was in my carry-on.

• Seven chocolate frogs in boxes that look like pyramids.  In other words, they are non-squishable.
• Ton Tongue Toffee
• A Honeydukes jar with horehound drops.
• Some Chattering Teeth from Zonkos.
• A Remembrall.
• A Sneakoscope
• Butterbeer glasses
• A pumpkin juice container

Some day I’m going to laugh about this.

I leave Denver

• Finally, I leave Denver.
• I remember that I have a photo shoot that Friday for a feature in Bakersfield Life, a monthly magazine that the Bakersfield Californian puts out.  It’s called the Red Couch, and four women with the same occupation are featured in each issue.  This month the women are artists and I was asked to participate.  It took some doing to work around my schedule and get all four of us to the paper at the same time.
• So, before leaving Denver, I check my calender on my Blackberry.  2:00.  OK, I will be showered and cleaned up and can make it at 2.  I remember that when I checked the time in Orlando, my Blackberry told me it was at 4 p.m.  I decide I’m not remembering correctly because that was impossible, and at this point, except for about four hours sleep, I had been up almost 24 hours.

Arriving in Bakersfield

• Jennifer picks me up and we wait for the luggage.  It does not come.  I go to fill out the form and the guy looks at my luggage receipts and asks me if I was supposed to arrive last night.  Yes, I say.
• He says that my luggage is not lost – it arrived last night.
• Is this magic?  United could not get me to Bakersfield Thursday night but it could get my luggage there? What, is there some special United luggage plane that zooms around the country like Santa Claus delivering luggage?
• I’m glad to have my luggage but dumbfounded that it arrived the night before.

Oh well

• Home!  Bath! My kitties! Time to spare for the photo shoot.  I leave the house about 1:20 thinking I’ll be early, because something in my genetic code requires me to be early or on time.  I am never fashionably late.
• I’m driving and Barbara calls on my cell.  She’s being featured also, and asks me, are you coming?  I say yes, it was at 2, right?  But I thought I’d come early. Wrong. It was at 1.  Oops!  I am already unfashionably late.
• They wait and I check my calender as I drive.  It says 1:00.  HUH? And I realize what has happened.  Every time I changed time zones, the Blackberry changed my appointment times.  When I checked it in Orlando, I was on eastern time, so it did say 4:00.  I wasn’t imagining it.  When I looked in Denver, I was on mountain time and it said 2:00.  Arriving in Bakersfield, I set the Blackberry for Pacific time but didn’t think to look at my calendar again.
• I think this is not a good feature of the Blackberry.  I think it would mess people up big-time.  It messed me up.

The end

• My travel is over.  I am home and in bed by 7:00 p.m.
• I am gearing up for dealing with United.
• I am done with the no good, terrible, really messed up day.

Tags: customer relations, Harry Potter World, luggage, rebooking, travel, travel updates, United Airlines

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 18th, 2010 at 11:28 PM and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.