It's my maiden voyage to San Antonio and I'm excited to get started on site visits tomorrow. That is if I don't come down with violent food poisoning first.
Let me start at the beginning.
I left Dodge City before noon. My assistant was going to be shuttling me to the airport to stay as efficient as possible because this week has a lot of moving pieces before Friday, and me not having a car parked at airport is just one of those pieces. When we hopped in the company car to take off we realized it was on E. So, we had to stop and get gas where we encountered a genius with a set of truck nuts. This should have been my first clue.
Once I was dumped off at the airport door I handed my bag over to be thoroughly sifted through by a TSA agent. I still don't understand why they have to go through EVERY bag, and EVERY compartment. Personally, I think they all have some sick desire to sift through people's stuff and...well, I won't go there.
As I sat down I got notice that my flight was delayed by about thirty minutes, and then I realized my second flight to San Antonio was also delayed. This isn't out of the ordinary, but typically you don't get lucky enough to have the second flight delayed and you end up sprinting though the airport. I was not about to complain about having a few extra minutes to change terminals.
We got through security and a family of four came through behind me a few people back. I was checking some email when I heard the little girl yell, "No! Mom!" and I looked up to see a three-year old screaming. I had to hold myself back from walking over to the little brat and beating her senseless. That should have been my second clue.
Once we were on the plane Joe, our flight attendant, looked like somebody I knew. Then it hit me. I had likely seen him in a Lionel Richie music video in 1985. Perfectly feathered hair, small mustache, gold bracelet, and of exotic heritage. Clue number three.
Once on the ground in Dallas I found out that our flight had been delayed further and our 5:25 departure time would be 7:11. I was going to miss my dinner reservation in San Antonio, so I called to push it back to 8:45. I sat and people watched for a few moments until a screaming banshee caught my attention.
"Oh, you're upset with my attitude! I can't believe your attitude. It sucks, and your service does, too! This airline is the biggest joke," screamed a petite woman at the gate agent two gates down from mine.
"Ma'am, we're going to have to ask you to calm down," the man said as he typed on his little keyboard.
"Calm down! I've been here all damn day and I want to get the hell out of here. Why don't you just put me on a Delta flight or something," she screamed some more and said things I couldn't distinguish.
I'm not one to compliment the customer service of the airline I flew today, because eight times out of 11 it sucks. They are typically rude and unhelpful - although once in a while you get a gem that makes the experience a good one. They must ask their employees to void all personality, too. However, even though they suck at customer service it doesn't give that little woman the right to scream at them, in fact the one that looked like a jerk, was the irrational woman yelling.
I vacated the area and went to the next gate because our gate was changed three times in the span of about 15 minutes. You would have thought Dallas had never seen a thunderstorm before. It was chaos, and pissy people, and gates clogged up where people were stuck. I witnessed more idiots being upset and I finally just took a seat to wait it out. The flight was delayed again, so I had to call and push my reservation back to 9 p.m. and she said they would just note that I was flying in and the chances of making it were slim. I was bummed. I really wanted to check out that restaurant.
I met a woman at the gate that was very nice. We talked and she asked me if I was married, or had children, and we made small talk. She then asked a few questions about my job. It was then she deduced that I worked too hard and, "You'll never find a husband if all you do is work."
Great, now I have complete strangers pointing this out.
Once I got rid of the husband pusher I boarded the plane (that was now delayed until 7:45) to be seated next to a lawyer from San Antonio. I thought she might gnaw the face off of the flight crew. Her experience all day was horrible. "I hate this airline," she said. "I don't really like any of them, but this one is the absolute worst at customer service."
I didn't disagree.
When she calmed down the conversation was quite good. She was very interesting, and I was glad she was there to make the flight go fairly quickly.
I landed in San Antonio and grabbed a $40 cab to my hotel on the Riverwalk. Yes. That broke down to about $5 a mile. I've been to bigger cities and it didn't cost $40 to go 20 miles. I got out of the cab and I was hot, covered in travel funk, three hours late, starving, missing my dinner reservation, and getting ripped off by a cab. I was in no mood to screw around.
Once checked in I hit the hotel restaurant and waited 15 minutes to get water. There were six people in the restaurant. The waiter was so bad, that I felt bad for him being in a job he clearly was not good at. I wanted to ask him if he had ever considered window washing or street sweeping, but I just tried to remain patient. I finally got the water and ordered a Jack Daniels steak cooked medium, steamed broccoli and and Caesar salad.
It took 35 minutes to get my salad, which was drenched in some sort of vinegar based dressing - not Caesar. It took another 17 minutes to get my steak and it was the worst steak I've ever eaten in my life. Horrid. Not only was it well-done, but it was charred. Charred so bad it tasted burned. The sauce that I got on the side tasted like brown gravy (not even close to having "a little kick" as advertised on the menu) and the broccoli was limp - not a bit of crunch.
Why didn't I send it back? Because it was almost 10 p.m. and I was so hungry even a bad steak was better than going to bed hungry.
I should have just went to bed hungry.
No comments:
Post a Comment