On my fourth attempt at a standby seat, I finally got on a plane last night. I’m finally in Spokane. My sleep schedule is off from the two-hour time difference, so I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep.
So the internship starts today. I’m nervous.
Some days go from bad to worse. This one went from bad to worst.
Today, I was supposed to fly from Kansas City to Spokane, where I have an internship over my semester break.
I got up with a long list of things I needed to take care of before leaving town, none of them particularly fun.
Then I spent a few hours trying not to turn into a big weepy mess because Quinton and I are going to be apart for four weeks and I’m all hormonal lately. I was uncharacteristically affectionate.
Then I got to the airport and said goodbye to Quinton.
Then there was no plane. But the lady at the counter LIED and swore we would be on schedule. We left 40 minutes late. I had slightly less than 40 minutes between connecting flights.
Then I got to Salt Lake City, ran like crazy to the far-away gate for my connecting flight to Spokane, only to reach it completely winded and be told that I needed to go back to where I came from and they would totally fix everything.
Then I went back, and was told I was on standby for a horribly-oversold flight in two hours, which also was going to be delayed.
Then I waited and panicked and they didn’t even bother to tell those of us on standby to go fuck ourselves. They boarded the rest of the people and then RAN AWAY AND HID. Not even subtly.
Then a whole bunch of even worse crap happened, and my bags (with every decent article of clothing that I own and all of my shoes and my favorite fleece blanket) are GONE, my options are ZERO and they tell me I should be deeply grateful that by undeserved luck, I was guaranteed a spot on a flight an entire day later.
I have to pay for a hotel myself, I have no way to get around town unless I want to ride the hotel/airport shuttle back and forth. And I have no clean clothes and no toothbrush.
I’m not really the type to cry in public, but all of Salt Lake City International saw my complete and total breakdown.
Oh, and to the woman at the counter at KCI who had the nerve to lie to us, yell at us for politely asking her to do her job, rudely dismissed the standby people without even bothering to inform them they wouldn’t be boarding the flight, then threw in a “Merry Christmas” and demanded applause once we boarded the plane: rot in hell.
PS: Delta lost a lot of customers today. I wasn’t the only one who had a disastrous day. SLC is full of people like me today.
Thank god the recycling center is open again. I’d post a photo of the giant nest of recyclable materials that’s slowly devouring our pantry, but it’s just too scary. It’s been months and I’ve saved everything. And considering (a) I’m a Diet Coke addict, (b) we love Chef Boyardee and his shiny tin cans, and (c) the Lawrence.com folks keep leaving their Deadwood edition on our doorknob every week*, it’s a miracle that it hasn’t started smelling funny.
* PLEASE STOP. We never read them. Seriously. We have the internet, we don’t need more papers. Is there a way to opt out? Please let me opt out.
Down in the Multimedia Newsroom, we do our best to stay on top of the latest news.
So to summarize for non-locals: this week, a controversial professor who recently pissed off the “fundies” reported that a couple of guys beat him up somewhere vaguely south of town early one morning. If you’re interested in the Professor Mirecki saga, J.D.’s been discussing new developments as they arise.
I don’t know that KUJH-TV reported any parts of the story before everyone else, but I suspect our resident conspiracy theorists — and we have many — were the first to question Mirecki’s confusing, if not completely contradictory, report of the incident.
My favorite “what really happened” theory (just a theory!) — by merit of simultaneous silliness and plausibility — came from Jayhawk Sports Talk producer Scott Winer. His explanation? Mirecki was indeed beat up, but not for political reasons. It was a gay rendezvous gone wrong.
Possible? Uh, I guess. Likely? Well, I’m not sold on it. Better than the idea of hateful conservative thugs roaming the only liberal stronghold in Kansas? Heck yes.
I’ve been thinking that
it would be way awesome if
Al Gore was my dad
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