Monday, October 8, 2012

Supreme Standby, Service, Security, Seattle, Sucky, Delta

I am delighted to be writing this first blog post.

I am not delighted that twenty hours after my flight from Seattle to Narita airport, I am still learning about new delays that are pushing my flight forward, then each time I have to re-book my connection to Beijing which is inevitably missed.

Originally my plane was supposed to leave on Sunday at 1:40 pm.  My mother was dropping me off at the airport so at about 10:15 we left.  On the way to the airport I decided I would call and switch my phone line off.  The service agent also recommended that I remove the SIM card from my iPhone so that it does not 'accidentally' try to roam while I am abroad.  Sounded weird and creepy to me, so I decided to take their advice.

I have seen two people take my SIM card out of my iPhone before, so I figured it was a piece of cake.  I just needed something super small, that could fit into a tiny little hole on the side of the phone.  No paper clip available.  "Mom can I borrow your earring?"  She hands it over, I jam it into the hole, and immediately destroy the earring.  Damn.  Then I remember that I have an earring that I always forget about.  Take that out, jam it into the hole, have some success at getting the SIM card to pop out, but my bad motor skills mixed with the bumps in the road kept making me accidentally knock the compartment back into the phone!  What a pain in the butt.  Then on a final try, I jam my silver stud into the hole, mom swerves, I drop and lose the earring under the seat of the car.  At this point I gave up for now, apparently I need the phone gods blessings, and they were not helping me what so ever.

Together after nearly killing three pedestrians and hitting two cars, we found a parking spot in the parking garage at the airport.  I am traveling with quite a bit of luggage on this trip, as I will be making home in a city as opposed to backpacking around, not to mention I wanted to bring some keyboards from home.  It took both of us to schlep all of my bags and gear to a counter, where they told us to go to another counter, where they told us to go to another counter, where they charged my credit card a MASSIVE three digit number for luggage, then sent me to oversize baggage where two TSA agents asked me if my clearly TSA locks were indeed TSA locks --- I thought for sure they would have recognized the little TSA logo on the locks right away as it was plastered all over their uniforms.

Then through security, no problem.

Then to the gate, no problem.

Then to the plane, no problem.

Then right before take off the captain says. "Something is wrong, we are expecting a fifteen minute delay"

Weird, okay whatever.

"Sorry for the inconvenience passengers, but we are going to have to tow the plane back to the gate, open up the enginge, and manually start it.  This should be completed within forty-five minutes."

What the hell, manually start a plane engine?  How the heck do you do that?  I imagine a man grabbing the propeller of an old plane and pulling it down wards with all of his strength.

An hour and a half goes by.  I am harassed by a flight attendant, an older Jewish woman from the east coast who keeps calling me "red pants".  I think they are more of a burgundy...  "Red pants, put your bag above in overhead storage..."  "Red pants, put your seat back up in case we take off..."  I did not understand because we were clearly not taking off but I kept my mouth shut.

"This is the captain speaking, the unfortunate news is that the neumatic starter in engine number two is shot.  The only replacement part in the country is in Minneapolis, and is going to be flown to us now.  It will get here at 7pm, and the plane should be good to go by 9 pm, but DELTA is telling us we have to reschedule the flight for 7am tomorrow morning."

At this point everyone is pissed, and a man in a red vest tells us to pick up all of our bags at baggage claim four, then proceed to the ticket desk for vouchers.

Baggage claim four - 45 minute wait.  Conveyor belt breaks, has to be repaired.  Move all luggage to baggage claim three.  As I am walking to baggage claim three I notice that there is a closed window that says ' over sized luggage '.  On the floor in the middle of the airport with nobody around are my two keyboards, six thousand dollars of prized possessions, unguarded, just chilling.  Go grab them, pay five dollars for a 'smart cart' load all my shit onto it, and head upstairs to a hour and a half long line.

When I talk to the DELTA man at the desk I feel like I am chatting to a celebrity.  He gives me a hotel voucher, a fifty dollar credit card that says DELTA on it, a $6 food voucher for dinner (big spender) a $6 food voucher for breakfast (big spender again) and a $100 coupon for my next DELTA flight (useless, as I will never fly on DELTA again).

Since I shut off my phone I boot up the laptop and send my mother a Facebook message.  She cannot believe it and comes out to hangout with me for the evening.  We went to get food, then hang out at the hotel.  AH!  The concierge has a paper clip!  Perfect for that SIM card!  Take out the SIM card, mission complete.  Then since we already ate dinner, I decided to go get a beer with that $6 voucher.  I ask for the Elysian IPA, one of my favorite beers, and the bartender continues to tell me about how it is a local beer from Tacoma.  Shut up, its from Seattle.  THEN - the beer was $8... DELTA did not even buy me a beer with that dinner voucher!!!

4 a.m.  Wake up, go to airport, repeat above steps.  Flight pushed back to 9:00 a.m. from 7.  WHAT IS GOING ON. I decide to take my $50 credit card (which I find out only works in the airport for 24 hours after it is issued...) and buy massive amounts of liquor in the duty free shop.  I ponder for thirty minutes.  What should I bring to China?  My favorite, or something soo American that I can share with my friends out there?  I decide to forgo my favorites and buy something classic.  I decided on Jack Daniels, and 1800 Tequila.  (Supposedly they do not drink tequila in China, and since we do all the time in Seattle I figured it was a good choice)  Total was $40.  As I am checking it out the person helping me asks where I am going, "Beijing" I reply, "Oh perfect" she says, then she asks "Do you have any lay-overs?"  Yes, Tokyo.  "Oh Mr. Grout, I am sorry you cannot bring more than 100ml of alcohol into Tokyo airport.  WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON!  100 ml is the tiny tiny little airplane shot...  I decided to forget about the liquor, although I did consider buying 40 airplane shots to bring....

Smokes?  I don't smoke so no thanks.  I have this fifty dollars though, and I want to spend it.  My only choice left.... fancy cologne.  I buy some Armani cologne, really nice, but I did not want it.  As I am writing this blog post a woman just came on the loud speaker and announced that we have all received another $50 voucher for the hell we are going through... how am I going to spend that?  More fancy smells, or how about fifty king size snickers bars?  The only place I can spend it is Hudson News or Duty Free --- if I could have used them together I could have bought a pair of Dr. Dre Beatz.

So now I have a flight to Tokyo, no flight to Beijing.  Another fifty dollar voucher and time to kill.

So that is the bad stuff - there are two good things that happened to me.

When I came back this morning to check all my gear and bags again, a woman from DELTA helped me cut to the front of the line because I had so much heavy stuff.  Cool.  Then, at Seattles Best Coffee their card machine was down and a flight attendant did not have any cash on her but wanted to buy a drip coffee.  I gladly bought it for her, no problem.  I don't have much money but I can spare two bucks for a coffee drinker in need. Then, three hours later, she found me and thanked me and gave me THREE FREE COCKTAIL vouchers for the plane!  Woohoo!  THEN!!!  She turns out to be a flight attendant on my flight!  Weird!

Alright I am going to spend more of DELTA's money on useless stuff.  WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON!!!

M


1 comment:

  1. Wow, so much excitement and you hadn't even left Seattle! Good luck on the rest of your adventures!!

    ReplyDelete