So like, in order to fly, you have to give someone a very large wad of cash for
a very small carboard like ticket that says all sorts of interesting things on
it, such as what plane you will be getting on, what gate it will be leaving
from, what time it goes and so on. One of the things it says is to call and
confirm that you're gonna be on the plane.
So I did. And I got a rather sullen person, who didn't at all sound like they
wanted to be on the phone with anyone at all (nice carreer choice) who told
me that what I was ACTUALLY supposed to do was show up at the airport at least
two hours before the flight, to allow for baggage check, ticket check, getting
to the gate, paying $20 for a bag of chips, etc.
So, being the naive first time travellers that we were, that's exactly what we
did. As a consequence, we sat staring at that sign that says 39 on it for
about an hour and 45 minutes. I had a book with me, for reading on the plane,
but I didn't want to read it while I was waiting, because the flight was 4
hours, and I'm a fast reader, and I would hate to be out of reading material
on a plane, where it's not polite to pace around. FemaleCompanion was also
somewhat less than amused at the wait, but spent a lot of the time thumbing
through expensive magazines about weird subjects, like weddings.
The lesson to be learned here is, sullen people who man the phones at the
airline are bastards. (No offense to my friend Lori, who used to work for
an airline)
