The Po Show

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and tired. That sure was a quick-moving 6 weeks, filled with lots of great stuff. Some tough stuff too, but overall it was a great summer.

Unfortunately the capper to the trip was our flight home. We got to the airport over two hours before departure, checked in easily at the curb (a good thing since we had two huge, heavy, unwieldy bags and no one to help us), breezed through security, then got to the gate and realized that the flight was slightly delayed. No problem, let's get lunch. Then as I was speaking to Ross on the phone about the delay, we both realized (he was looking online) simultaneously that the flight was delayed by an additional hour. Well, this was going to be interesting, since we only had 42 minutes between flights to make our connection in Chicago. Well, maybe the connection flight would be delayed too? (Hope, hope.) Or maybe there'd be a later flight (unlikely, since we were flying into our little county airport and arriving at around midnight)?

Things got really ominous when the United desk guy got on the PA and told us that anyone who was delayed, and thus missed their connecting flights, would get a hotel voucher. So I felt I had to tell the kids that we might have to spend the night in Chicago. As was to be expected, Matthew was very upset to hear that, and Tessa delightedly said, "It'll be a great adventure, and I can tell everyone about it when school starts!" I tried to find out if there was a flight out of Chicago to JFK or La Guardia or *anyplace* in the area, but there were none.

So we finally got on the plane, and that pilot *hauled ass* to Chicago. I have never experienced a landing with the pilot coming in that fast; he *slammed* the brakes on that plane. But once we were on the ground, I called Ross and found that our next plane had already left its gate, 12 minutes EARLY. So that was that. At least we didn't have to hurry, since we were already screwed. It would have really sucked to dash from one terminal to the next (and O'Hare has some *major* distances between terminals!) only to find we still missed the connection.

Matthew was really pissed at this point, and when I saw the mile-long line at "customer service" (in quotes because the level of service was woefully inadequate), so was I. There I was, the only person in line with children, with no other adult to help me, with a son who was obviously very upset, and none of the United agents standing around offered me any kind of special assistance. We just inched along, with dozens of other people who'd had their flights delayed or cancelled. About half-way through our wait, a stranded passenger left the counter in a very pissed off state. On his way out of the area, he whacked his water bottle into a free-standing sign, making a loud noise. The United counter guy charged after him, and confronted him. The passenger scoffed at him and walked away. The counter guy proceeded to get on the phone to security and never went back to helping people in line. He waited till security showed up, then went to talk to them. So it was more important to him to bitch about some dude who hit a SIGN with a water bottle than to help dozens of stranded passengers?

We finally made it to the front of the line and the counter woman just put her hand out for our boarding passes. No "How can I help you?" or "We're sorry we fucked up your life." The guy being helped next to me asked about meal vouchers in addition to his hotel voucher and was told that that was no problem. I asked if we could get meal vouchers too and the woman told me, "I'm already printing them out for you." I asked about our luggage (which we'd already been told we could not get that night, so we were without ANYTHING, no clothes, no toothbrushes) and she said she'd have them transferred to our flight the next morning, which was at 7:00AM.

The kids and I then schlepped *forever* to the shuttle center and caught the shuttle to the hotel. As I was checking in, I realized that in the packet I'd been given, there were no meal vouchers. I asked the desk clerk if the hotel voucher included meals and he said no, they're separate documents. I said the woman at the United counter must have forgotten to give them to us, and he smirked and said, "Oh, she knew what she was doing. It's United." So I guess they are infamous for their sucky customer service.

We then went to the bar (nothing else was open at 10:00PM) and had dinner, then went up to our room. It didn't seem to make sense bathing, since we'd just have to put our sweaty clothes back on. We brushed our teeth with the toothbrushes and paste I bought at the airport ($13.75, thank you very much) and tried to go to sleep. Tessa fell asleep at around midnight and I fell asleep soon after. I woke at 1:20 to the sound of Matthew still being up. He finally fell asleep about 2:30, and I never did fall back asleep. So I got a grand total of one hour of sleep, before forcing them up at 5:10 so we could catch the 5:30 shuttle back to the airport. We got on our flight without incident, which was certainly a nice change of pace.

We got into White Plains and Ross was there to pick us up. We watched as the luggage went around and around on the carousel, and only one of our bags came down. I spent another eternity at the ticket counter, filling out forms. Then the counter woman decided to go and look in the back, and lo and behold, our suitcase was locked up back there. How did it end up in the back, instead of going with the rest of the flight's luggage?

Anyway, obviously I'm still pissed about the whole experience, having just typed it out in excruciating detail :p. I fired off a complaint to United, saying I'm never flying with them ever again. "Friendly skies" my ass.