Can't Get There from Here

I'm a Flying Fish. Or at least, that's what I'm trying to be. We're scheduled to fly from Houston to DC Monday. Direct. Nonstop. Straight shot. Easy-peasy, right?

Ha. Ha hahaha ha.

Pop called tonight and started with the "You know they're having a blizzard in the northeast, don't you? Have you called the airlines? What are you going to do if they cancel your flight?"

What I'm gonna do is be out about $2500 smackers is what.

So after Pop panicked me, I've been online and on the phone with an airline I won't name (but which lookes a lot like UN-TIED) and I think I have spoken to exactly one human from the airline in six hours.


Phone drone: I don't understand you. Tell me the reservation number of your flight.

Me: Start. Over.

Phone drone: Did I understand you want information on a flight to California? Yes or No?

Me: I hate you.

PD: I'm sorry I'm having trouble understanding you. Let's look up the flight another way. Tell me what date you want to travel.

Me: I just want to talk to a human! Is that so wrong?

PD: I'm sorry, I'm not getting the information you wanted. Do you want to start over?

Me: YES!!

PD: If you want information about a flight, press one.

Me: AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!


I finally spoke to Sam in it-had-to-be-Bangalore about whether the flight would go. Sam shows no flights cancelled as of this evening. Funny, because the AIRPORT sure does. And the website shows ticket policy changes, meaning there MAY be a way not to have to sell the Little Critter to pay for all of this. Except, other than the possibility of recouping the travel cost or at least re-ticketing to another airport, I have nothing to go on and about 27 hours until we have to be at the airport to catch the re-ticketed flight we want.

It gets funner, y'all.

In looking up flights using the Same Damn Airline, I discovered that, no, I can't GET there from here. We were hoping to get into Atlanta in order to drive the rest of the way to DC. Yeah, it'd be a push, but we wouldn't have to worry about driving straight through, which, I am convinced, would kill me. But lo! You-Smited airlines doesn't GO from here to there. We get to wake up three hours earlier, drive across the city to the airport and take the early early bird to where? Oh, yeah, O'Hare in Chicago.

Chicago? You might even be giggling at me right now. You worldly travelers are sniggering at me this minute because, you say, sooner or later EVERYONE goes through O'Hare. Fine, but does it have to be THIS TIME? I have to take a plane half-asleep to Chicago, where I can wait an hour and a half to take another plane to Atlanta, where I can rent a car and drive to DC. In one day. And hope that I can actually get there. And that they will hold my hotel room in DC. And that I will not fall down exhausted and surrender somewhere along the way.

If only we had an Amtrack leg of this journey, it would be complete. I'd be looking for John Candy clones wherever I went.