Blind

Kathy, a person I work with told me a sad story about her experience w/ United this week. She is a Red Carpet member. Sunday was terrible with delays and cancellation. While she was waiting in the Red Carpet club, a blind man came in to ask if he could just sit in a chair out of the way. His flight had been cancelled.

The Red Carpet lady asked if he was a member. Because this was a members only club. He replied no. He just wanted to be out of the busy terminal. She said no, he had to leave. Kathy let the woman know that he could come in as a guest of her. That really pissed the woman off. She said that he still couldn't come in because the Club was designed to keep certain people out.

This begs the question, who are these people? The poor? (who can't afford plane tickets?) The rif raff who can't get through security anymore w/o a ticket. Or the disabled? Well, Kathy was very irritated and still insisted to let the blind man sit down and rest a bit. The woman finally relented when she noticed that the other customers looked appalled and disgusted with her.

The old man sat down and promptly fell asleep. The seeing eye dog curled up under his legs and proceeded to sleep.

While I understand that the worker was just doing her job, but it begs the question, during this holiday season, could she not have had a bit of heart?

Make up my mind!

First real snow fall in Ann Arbor this week. It was a trip. The snow looked great. We received at least 12 inches. I watched the Husky across the street enjoying the snow. She pranced and pounced and danced all over the front year. After she did her business, she returned back to the front door and basically barked, "Let me in! It's windy out here!"

I knew it was going to be a challenging travel week when the limo company called to say that they couldn't pick me up in the afternoon. Apparently, their limo drivers had totalled a couple of the cars and they didn't want to risk having any more drivers out on the road.

I checked the flights and noticed that the first 2 flights out were cancelled. Not a good sign. Eventually, mine was cancelled too. I was booked on the first flight out on Monday instead. Not a big deal. I couldn't get out of my driveway anyway. Another night w/ the mate, YAY!

Getting to the airport was easy Monday morning. I breezed through security. The plane loaded ahead of schedule. This wasn't going to bad after all. DOH! The captain came on and announced that he had good news and bad news. Being the person I am, I hoped for bad news first. I can't even remember what the good news was. The bad news was that the plane was fueled for a flight that is longer distance than where we were going. This meant that we were too heavy. Instead of kicking 9 people off the plane, they were going to switch us to a new plane.

Several passengers who were trying to make connections were not pleased. So we got off the plane and went to the next plane. I smiled at the flight attendant again and said, "Deja Vu!" She laughed and waved me to my seat.

We are all on, the luggage has been transferred. We wait for a bit as all the paperwork is filled out. The pilot comes on again to let us know that somehow, we were given a plane that maintenance grounded it. We were asked to deplane again. Sigh. The couple behind me were not pleased. They had been trying since the day before to reach Oklahoma from Appleton WI. As I left the plane, the flight attendant said, "Don't say Deja vu!". So I replied, "There is a glitch in the Matrix." She shooed me out the door.

We finally got to a 3rd plane. We left at a bit after 11 o'clock. The flight was supposed to leave at 7:15 AM. The 9 AM flight left and landed before we even left. Sigh. This does not forebode well for the upcoming winter travels.