Missed connections

I flew to New York last weekend for the wedding of a good friend of mine from college. On my way there, this (see photo) is what I saw from my window.

Creative advertising, no? If only I'd had an internet connection while I was at 39,000 feet. Supposedly, such a luxury is now available on some flights -- probably at a price I'd rather not pay. It would be tempting, though, on the next cross-country trip. This one was five hours, which was actually a very good deal since it was nonstop. Most of the time, I have to change planes in either Chicago or Dallas, and the legs between Seattle and those cities are almost as long. Add layover time and at least one more flight, and five hours on one 757 looks perfectly decent in comparison. Especially with Wi-Fi.

I had a great time at the wedding, which was sandwiched between two brief reunions -- I got in on Friday just early enough to have coffee with a friend from high school (she’s getting her MBA now) before hurrying off to the rehearsal dinner; the day after the wedding, I met up with a friend from my current program and stayed the night with her. Everything felt a bit rushed, but it was really good to see so many people whom I haven’t been able to catch up with from afar. Letter writing isn’t something they tend to do; fortunately, things are easy with us when we’re back together, and it’s as if we haven’t been out of touch at all.

Leave-taking is another matter, however. Ever have trouble saying goodbye because the person you're saying goodbye to starts telling you something really personal or heartfelt and you can't really just respond with, "Okay, thanks! See you around ..."? That was what happened as I was trying to get to the airport on Monday. My friend from Little U. on the Prairie has truly been going through some difficult stuff and was very grateful that I'd stayed an extra day just to see her. She came with me to Penn Station to give us a little more time to catch up and to see that I got on my train to Newark without any problems. But as we were getting close to the time the train was supposed to leave, she started talking about relationship stuff, heavy stuff, stuff you don't want to brush aside because clearly the person telling you about it is in pain. So by the time there was an appropriate opening to check my watch (and I felt horrible doing it anyway) I'd missed my train. And there wasn't another for 40 minutes, which meant that when I did finally get to the airport, it was too late to check in for my flight. There were still 30 minutes to go before its scheduled departure, but that's not within the accepted time limit for passengers to get through security (even without checked bags).

The folks at Newark were quite displeased with me, to put it mildly. When I told the agent at the check-in counter that the self-service kiosk wouldn't issue me a boarding pass, she immediately began scolding me. "It's not the computer; YOU were late!" she said (among other this-isn't-our-fault phrases). I never meant to imply that it was a system glitch, but I didn't think arguing over semantics was going to get me on my plane. So I kept my mouth shut.

She sent me to the gate, where I tried to get the attention of the agent there. He happened to be on the phone and held up a hand as if to say, "Hang on," so I appealed to another woman taking tickets since there was no one left to board. Big mistake -- "You're going to have to WAIT, miss," the gate agent said, with a tone that might as well have implied a "young lady" afterward. I knew there was no point in telling him that I was inconveniencing him because I'd been providing an ear to a friend who needed one, so I didn't bring it up. Alas, such snark! As soon as he'd hung up, he turned on the attitude and started shaking my priority verification card (what I needed to get through security without a ticket) at me. The worst part was that I knew that if I wanted the guy to get me back on my original flight as a standby passenger, I'd just have to take it from him like I'd been a bad little Troubadour. So when he felt the need to reiterate that it was MY fault, not his, that I'd been bumped "because YOU were late checking in!" -- yes, I'm not trying to blame this on your being on the phone, Mr. Gate Agent, why do you think I am? -- I just gave him my best whipped puppy look and behaved as meekly as possible for the rest of his finger-shaking until the new boarding pass was in my hand.

Afterward, I felt really disturbed for allowing those people to behave in such a demeaning way toward me. It was all in the name of getting what I wanted in the end, but I guess part of me feels betrayed by the other part of me that let it go on without defense. Can't win, can I? Sigh ...

I'm at Almost Dr. Sis's place till next Tuesday for a long overdue visit. That, of course, is what getting on the flight was worth -- I wanted every minute I'd planned on having with her. (If I'd been heading back to Seattle, I would have just waited for the next flight three hours later.) So far, it's been a terrific three days here. More on that soon. For now, though, if you've got stories about airline agents with attitude and how you got around them without having to give up your dignity, I'd love to hear them.