Disasters
Tuesday, July 12th, 2005From the looks of things this morning, I’m not the only one with problems, but the last few days of last week were pretty fucking bad. I’ll leave out the stuff that happened while I was still traveling since it deserves its own post.
ONE: Kirsten and I got back to the house to find that Ida had peed on basically every carpet around. $300 in vet bills later it turns out there’s nothing wrong with her and it was just her way of saying “Yo! When the weather gets warm like this the litterbox gets too stinky with two cats sharing it. Could you get us an additional litterbox?”
TWO: Our bags didn’t show up when we did. It was a tight connection in Seattle so it wasn’t that surprising, but they should have been in to Boston at around 4:00 pm. (We got in at 7 am. This is on Thursday.) Around 4 we tried calling. No answer. We figure that means that they must not have made it on the afternoon flight.
Friday morning at 10:30. They finally pick up the phone. (This is one additional complication. We flew Alaska Airlines, but they contract with US Air to run the baggage claim and everything since they only fly two flights a day into Boston.) The US Air guy says “Yeah, we’ve got your boxes right here. They came in on the afternoon flight yesterday. There are only three of them here though.” Two points here… we checked four bags… and two of them had 100 pounds of frozen fish. The baggage guy’s response to our emphatic request to get the fish to us before it defrosted was “Oh, don’t worry, the outside of the boxes are still cold.” and “The courier is here right now, let me hang up so I can give your boxes to him.”
Noon on Friday: they’re not answering the phone.
3:00 on Friday: they’re not answering the phone. There’s a number that goes to the baggage supervisor… but when you call it you get a message that says “voicemail full”
6:30 on Friday: Finally, they answer the phone. A woman says that the bags went to the courier at 2:30. She can’t explain why the earlier guy said they went on the courier at 10. I ask if I can have the courier’s phone number to see when he’s going to get to the house. She says no, but she can have them call me. She promises that my bags should be at the house by 8.
10:00 on Friday: The courier finally calls. He’s out on the cape delivering someone else’s bags and predicts that he’ll drop our bags off at 3 or 4 am. Kirsten yells at him telling him that he has 100 pounds of rotting fish in the back of his van and that he needs to get his ass to Hartford. (We later apoligized and gave him a good tip.)
1:45 am Saturday: The courier shows up with Kirsten’s bag and the two boxes of fish. He has a signed piece of paper that shows that he picked up the bags from the US Air people at 4 pm. So everyone we talked to in Boston was flat-out lying to us. At this point, it’s been like 60 hours since the fish was in a freezer and about 15-20 pounds of it is ruined. (Figure $10-$15 a pound.) And, of course, my bag is still missing.
Noon on Saturday: We finally get through to a supervisor in Boston. He’s shocked that the other people lied to us and is marginally helpful but he has no idea where my bag is. I decide to listen to my answering machine just in the off chance someone called the number on the tag… nothing.
2:00 on Saturday: We try calling Alaska Airlines. I talk to a very nice woman in Seattle who unfortunately can do nothing to help me. In fact, the only people who can possibly help me are only available from 10:00-3:00 Pacific time on weekdays.
4:00 on Sunday: I try my answering machine again. There’s a message Northwest Airlines in Minneapolis saying they have a bag with my name on it but have no idea where it came from or why they have it. They can’t get into Alaska’s missing baggage system and they don’t even realize that the bag should have anything to do with US Air… after three phone calls we get everything sorted out, they give the bag to US Air, and US Air promises to have the bag at the Lebanon airport at around 1:30 on Monday.
2:00 on Monday: The people at the US Air counter here are really nice. Unfortunately, they don’t have my bag. There’s another flight at 4 though.
5:00 on Monday: Nope. The guy here calls the baggage office to see if there’s a bag that might be getting on the flight. No definitive answer.
8:00 on Monday: My bag makes it here! Of course, now I have a bag full of slightly damp smelly dirty laundry… but at least it’s back. And it only took them 5 days. 
THREE: (you forgot there was a third disaster didn’t you) When Kirsten and I were getting lunch on Sunday, a moron tried to back into a parking spot without looking behind him. Kirsten got two good long bursts of the horn in and tried to get into reverse, but there wasn’t time to do both and the guy ignored the horn. So now we’re in need of a new hood and front bumper for her car. At least he had insurance.
