...back again, to tell the rest of this heinous airport story. Just for the record, in the week after I updated again with more details about the airport, I kept waking up at like 3:00 a.m. or 4:00 a.m. nervous and paranoid that I was stuck in the airport and not going to make it back here to Spain to work on time. When I wake up under these circumstances I'm positive it's before Christmas and before my birthday. It blows my mind when I finally realize it's half way through February and both holidays have passed. It's slightly sad to realize but that's just how traumatizing this was. Here's to wishful thinking that this conclusive post won't effect my sleep patterns.
Okay. So when we last left off I was at the airport, Rashidanaan had dropped me off and waited to make sure I was at the right place. I asked curbside check-in and they said I was. I asked a woman where I was supposed to check in with my boarding pass and she pointed me in the direction of the ticket kiosks. She told me I could put anything in the kiosk with my name on it and it would scan and print the ticket (based on name recognition). I did so and after scanning it said it could not locate me in the system. Panicking a little bit on the inside, I swiped all articles of I.D. I had....still no luck. Trying not to worry, I asked the woman what to do and she said not to worry, I would just have to have one of the attendants print out my ticket for me. It was totally fine. Nothing to worry about. Yet.
Got in line in "Special Customer Services", and by this point I was musing about how truly special I am now to have wasted hours of my life in these "special situation" lines. And they still kept dicking up. But I wasn't panicking yet. This was totally fine. The cheery kiosk lady told me so. She wouldn't lie. This was a normal situation.
Of course it wasn't a normal situation and if you believed that then you're as dumb as I am/was.
I handed the woman my ticket (it was really a receipt that my Latina friend had printed out to show the transaction...not an actual ticket. If it were I wouldn't be that special right now) and told her the machine did not recognize me in the system. She takes my passport, enters all my information, and after ten minutes tells me that there is no ticket with my name on it in the system. My heart literally dropped like a dead body to the floor. I heard a thud. And I'm pretty sure it stopped beating for the next two hours. After typing and diddling on the computer for another 10 minutes, the woman tells me that she can see something really weird happening with my name in the system, that she can see a bunch of transactions that were made and then cancelled, but that none of those ticket numbers worked in the system (they'd all been cancelled) and now there was no ticket number to hold on to, to put me on a flight back to Indianapolis (or anywhere for that matter)...I was stuck in computer hell, essentially. Cosmo trick was working, I kept staring into the bright hallogens above and wasn't crying. It was 6:50 and I still had an hour and forty minutes before my flight left. Totally fine. This was normal. Kiosk woman said so. Although that hope was slowly slipping down the shitter.
New woman (I feel awful I forget her name because I stared at her left breast for atleast two hours by the time this was over and vowed half way through I was going to write Delta a letter telling them how helpful she was, assuming she was able to figure out how to get my carcass, dead or alive, to Indy...and I forgot it) kept typing in codes, looking in books, and doing everything she could think of to figure the situation out. I told her that Latina had put me on a flight to Minneapolis, and then to Washington, before she finally got her manager and asked him to finish the transaction correctly to Indianapolis. She told me she could see all that, but I was never reinstated onto another flight. My ticket was just cancelled and that was the last of it. The bad part was that the ticket number from the Washington flight was not working. Four other Delta members tried their best to crack the code but all of their codes came back saying, "Call American Airlines for assistance." Eventually she ended up using two phones at the same time, one on the phone with Delta headquarters and the other on the phone with American Airlines at the airport. She switched back and forth on the phones (literally a phone on each ear stretched from two different desks) and eventually, after realizing she'd been helping me for, literally, and hour and ten minutes and on hold for half of that....she wasn't going to get anywhere. That's when the Cosmo trick wore off and I started ugly crying with no hope of stopping. Gasping for air. Trembling. Pretty ugly in general. She said she didn't want to send me to American, because American would just send me back to Delta...and I'd be running back and forth. The time was 7:25 a.m. and my flight was going to leave me. Again. Technically it wasn't even my flight. I didn't have a flight. My name was floating in the computer, belonging to nobody. Poetically, that's how I had felt for the past 32 hours.
I didn't know what to do. By this point the woman at the desk was hella livid with American Airlines, I was bawling, and every five minutes somebody would come up to the desk and check in to the exact flight to Indiana I was supposed to be on. Which made me wail even harder. It was a nightmare...or a bad sitcom montage. Finally the woman just told me, "Look. I wish I could get inside of your head for twenty minutes, or just long enough to chew the shit out of those bastards at American. You need to get angry. You need to tell them, point blank, you have screwed me over and I need to get home. Period. And that they are GOING to fix it. No questions asked. All they need to do is issue you a new ticket number...the last one I can see does not work."
She told me once I knew anything to come find her immediately, because she wanted to know what ended up happening. I called American, which ended up being even more annoying in this situation than you can even imagine. First of all, they have a machine-automated system. It asks you for your first and last name. "Did you say 'Selsie Ice-lear?" Why the hell would I say that. "I'm sorry about that...where is your destination?" Indianapolis. "Did you say Indianapolis?" Duh. "When is your flight?"? 8:40. "When?" 8:40. "Did you say 8:30?" No. What the hell. I said 8:40. "I'm sorry I don't recognize that flight time. We have a flight to Indianapolis at 6:30 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m., and 4:45 p.m. Are one of those options your flight?" NO I SAID THE FLIGHT WAS AT 8 EFFING 40 A.M. YOU DUMB AUTOMATED STEAMING PILE OF USELESS CRAP.
So now I was annoyed. Not really angry. And still crying. I finally get ahold of someone and tell her the story (just of this morning). She spends 10 minutes looking, while I'm on hold, and comes back telling me the ticket number. I look and of course it's the same ticket number that wasn't working in the Delta system. I told her that Delta can't help me. Period. And that I wasn't going to accept that their worthless company couldn't either. I trusted Delta and the woman who spent over an hour on the phone for me more than American Airlines at this point. She put me on hold again and said she would see what she could do. Ten more minutes on hold and she comes back to tell me that she couldn't reinstate me on that flight because it would cost more. I told her that all of this was a computer glitch. All she had to do was give me a new ticket number. That's ALL. I was not paying more money. I was not at fault here. I DID NOTHING WRONG TO DESERVE THIS (except maybe kill innocent puppies in a past life or something). I tried to maintain my annoyed voice but it was painfully obvious I was trying not to break down crying (because that would do me no good, I wouldn't be able to breathe or say anything...and softly sobbing on the other end would not move people to action...it might move them to euthanize me, but not help me). She decides to call Delta headquarters herself to work it out and finally after another ten minutes comes back and tells me she has a new ticket number. I run to the lady at the desk and throw her my phone telling her to talk to her. My fingers are so wadded up crossed every which way possible that my hands looked like nubbins. I was pleased because the lady at the desk was talking to the American Airlines person like she was the most worthless human being on the planet....I'm glad she could convey the emotions I couldn't. Finally I hear her say "thank God, that one worked. Thank you so much. Yeah, bye." IT WORKED.
But it was 8:00. And my flight LEAVES in 40 minutes (there was no boarding time labelled). I asked the woman if I even had enough time to get all the way there and she told me there was no way in hell I was missing that flight. She shoved me through the entire line herself at security and then with a puff of smoke and some glitter she was gone (in my mind). I was so gittery and excited and nervous about missing the flight that I was ready to run through the airport (which goes against all of my values, I hate running, especially in public). I kick off my boots, throw everything I can into the little plastic bins, and run through the metal detector. No beeps. I grab my boots, my bag, and my computer and prepared to jet miles through the airport to get to my gate; 5-A. I didn't waste time putting on my shoes or putting my computer in my bag...I would carry them whilst running. I did make sure to ask the security guard if 5-A was close though. He told me simply "yeah, all the gates are right there" and pointed. Yeah right, douchebag, like ALL of the gates in this forsaken airport are just around the corner. Dumbass. "Okay but how much time will it take to get to gate 5-A?" "I said, all of the gates are that way." FINE, be rude. I was still gonna run for it.
Annoyed that he was so worthless, but not effected because I had too much running to do, I got a good grip on my boots and on my computer and start scuffling in my socks down the hallway. I wasn't going to work up to a full-fledged run until I knew exactly how far away my gate was....were we talking five minutes? Ten minutes? I needed one of those signs that tells you exactly how many minutes you should expect to wait. Plus I could probably take a breather from all the running in those stupid trams between the terminals. It'd be fine. Get my heart pumping.
I shuffle around the corner, amidst getting stared at like I had just grown a third arm out of my forehead for running around without my shoes on (it's an airport for Christ's sake, if you can't run frantically barefoot through an AIRPORT, where can you??). I look at the signs for a chart of wait times and gates....and all I see is Gate 1, Gate 3, Gate 5, Gate 7 on the left...and Gate 2, Gate 4, Gate 5-A on the right. I'll be damned if the gate was not literally right around the corner, just like security man said.
I should mention that it's been a long time (if ever) since I have flown through a domestic airport. They are all international and I always end up walking on 15 moving sidewalks before I get to my gate. And by then I'm exhausted from dragging my stupid carry on 200 miles and trying to keep up with the power walkers.
Speaking of, even with my boots and my laptop in my arms, it felt like I was missing something. That's when I realized I was. I was so jumpy and spastic at the checkpoint that I had left my rolling carry on bag that weighed 20 lbs and had all of my clothes. Not to mention that's the second time in my Spain travels that I've gotten so panicked that I forget to grab it from security.
So, relieved that the gate was within eyesight, I hustled back to security and noticed that aforementioned security "dumbass douchebag" (accidentally inappropriately named...although I truly believe he could have been more verbal and explained "We only have one terminal and all gates are 3o seconds away") had taken my carry on over to the bomb squad area and was testing it for explosives. Peachy. I sheepishly got closer and flashed as innocent of a smile as possible and said "heh, that's my bag...I was in such a rush I forgot" and offered my boots and bare feet as visual proof of said-hurry (in case he didn't remember me from less than a minute ago). He brushed me off and said, "yeah yeah, I still have to finish with this, it'll be just a second." I tried to act ditzy, thanked douchebag, and then ran all 10 feet to gate 5-A, where they weren't even boarding. Once they called for our flight, though, we did have to take a little bus from the area to the actual plane. Apparently the overhead storage in our plane was not excellent, so they took our larger carry-on items and checked them for free. The plane was SO luxurious. There was massive legroom, the seats were wide & cushioned, and there drinks were amazing. I was so overwhelmed with relief that I thought I was going to throw up, or that this was all too much good to come to me so quickly, so the plane was clearly bound to crash. Seriously. I also had forgotten to use my $12 breakfast voucher (read: didn't have time to use it) so I was practically starving.
I landed in Indianapolis on time and called Jeri immediately. They could see me landing. I rushed through the gate expecting them to be there (like the movies) but I was pretty let down when I realized I was at the gates where normal people weren't allowed. I would have to trek a little bit to find them. I power-walked past all the schmucks in front of me (clearly NOT appreciating Indiana as much as I was) and bound through the walkway into the food court with nothing on me but my jacket and my purse. Luckily, without all the luggage, I was able to scream at full volume and flail my arms like a mental patient while attacking my mother. The thought crossed my mind for a few seconds that maybe she was just a hologram. Luckily she wasn't. We grabbed McDonalds (and Tim strong-armed Starbucks into issuing us free crap for the $12 JFK voucher) and then went downstairs to find my suitcases. It wasn't there (surprise!) The man at the office told me that it would be in at 5:30 that day but that the offices were open until 9 or 10 and he would be there so I could come whenever. Perfect! I told the man that he was the most helpful American Airlines employee, which means a lot coming from me and the shit I put up with in the past two days.
Hours later my brother and I go to the airport. I hustle to the office....pitch black. With a sign that says "Be back in two hours." I completely jinxed myself. That man was worthless. Luckily there was an older couple and their best friend who also needed their bags so they had called security to come and open the door. We only waited ten minutes when the guard showed up and opened the door. I asked her if she wanted to see my ID or my luggage tags when she looked at me like I was the world's dumbest living human being and said "uh, NO." .........................how comforting. In that case all four of those bags are mine too.
In the end I made it home by 2 p.m. on Christmas Eve. I was only home for 2 weeks-ish, and the second week I ate some Arby's on the way home from a funeral and got the most intense bout of food poisoning I think I've ever had. I ended up getting a shot in the ass to stop me from getting sick.....but I was able to rest a lot and catch up on American television and pop culture. I also lost 8 lbs. since September, and am attributing 7 of those to the food poisoning. Thank you, and eff you Arby's.
Welp, I think that's it. Starting next blog I can update about my crazy ass private classes I suffer through, the new cute student teachers at our school, Carnaval, and most importantly my birthday. If you're lucky I will update Sunday. I'm trying to catch up so I write these in real-time and not via my slowly-fading memory. I retain more deets that way. Love you all! Happy Valentine's Day, and Carnaval.
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