Poop Shute

A Letter to Mr and Mrs. Crohn

First, I just want to say CONGRAT-U-FREAKING-LATIONS!!!!!

Second, I would like to add damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn.

I actually want to say things much more colorful, but you get the idea.

Here's how things should have gone today, according to my plan:

2pm Show starts
3:45pm show ends, I leap out of my costume and sprint out the door where Meg is waiting with the car running
4:30pm our flight leaves the ground
5:30pm our flight lands in Ontario, quick cab ride later and we stumble in for the top of the ceremony, or shortly after.

I had it all worked out. We got our boarding passes in the morning, so we could skip checkin, and we had no luggage what-so-ever. The theatre is literally less than ten minutes from the airport, so most of the time between the show and the flight could be spent running across the terminal. It all should have worked out perfectly. But then fvcking Life got in the way.

The stage manager held house for at least ten to fifteen minutes, which means the show started that much later than it should. This pushes the end of show to about 4pm on the dot. I am especially upset about this because she knew that I had a flight to make, and yet she did it anyway... and the house was SMALL BESIDES! This made it tight to make it in time, but with the extremely short drive, and nothing else to complicate the situation, we could still do it. Once we got to the airport and sprinted up to the security point where they x-ray your bag we discovered a complication that we might have known if we had read the boarding passes that we printed that morning. The security guy looked at our boarding passes and shook his head. "You missed it. It's probably leaving the gate right this second" he said.

WHAT?!

He then pointed out to me that our boarding passes were for a flight that was scheduled to leave at 4:20, not 4:30 like ORBITZ.COM told me. Yeah, that's right. Orbitz sold me a ticket that was listed as a 4:30 flight on their website, when in reality the actual flight was scheduled to leave at 4:20 all along. And, no, I'm not remembering wrong. That tiny little ten minute gap would have given me pause about buying the ticket to begin with. It said 4:30 damnit.

Between the stage manager and Orbitz we lost twenty-five minutes of between time that made all the difference in the world.

So, we missed that one. Grrrrr. My mood went completely south when I realized that I would miss the ceremony, and there was nothing I could do about it. The customer service counter informed us that the next flight wasn't until 7 pm. GRRRRRR. Fine. Nothing we can do about it. We'll still get in at 8 and have two and a half hours of reception time. That makes it a lot of trouble for just a couple hours, but that's not the end of the world. I was still grumpy at this point, but oh well.

Then the flight got delayed to 7:10... then 7:30... then as 7:10 came and went the plane was not even there yet. Shortly after that it finally arrived and began disembarking, which means there is no way in hell that we'd be in the air by even 7:30 anyway. I was guessing 7:45, if even that soon. At this point we realized that the earliest possible time that we would be walking in to the reception would be between 9 and 9:30 if we were lucky and no further delays came up. My heart sank. I wanted to cry. At this point we would only be there for about an hour and then turn around to drive home. And after this ordeal I wouldn't have been good company anyway. So, with our heads hanging and our tails tucked between our legs we walked away from the gate. By the way, as we walked out it was almost 7:20 and the disembarking of the previous passengers had not even finished.

So, there it is. There is the story of Joey and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. The good news is I have a three week break between April 24th and May 19th, and I'd love to come out and visit for a few days to make up for it. Oh, and we got you a present too. It's THIS. Let me know if someone else got you another one, and I'll take it back. We love ours, man, It's really handy for making mashed potatoes, refried beans, and it makes a GREAT milkshake.

Love you guys, and sorry that we suck. Shoot me an email about coming to visit in May. I mean it. Seriously, pick a couple days and I'm there.

COMMENTS:

Much love, of course, Joey. Thank you for trying so hard to make it out here. Sometimes life gives you lemons, and sometimes life gives you kittens that only LOOK like lemons, and then you feel horribly guilty that you just tried juicing a kitten, but not TOO guilty because the kiteen juice tastes pretty good too. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, so just pretend it's (+5, Insightful).
And we'll be glad to have you and Meg come out to visit us during your break. We get back from the honeymoon April 16th, so any of those weekends is fine. Just let me know which one works best for you. I'll bring the lipstick and assless chaps.
Josh 04.05.06 - 4:00 am

Planning a trip with Orbitz? Check the fine print for: BULLSHIT.
Edward Carter 04.05.06 - 6:31 pm

I read the page you linked, Ed. This guy is a moron. When me and Brian and Nick and Gurg flew in to visit you guys a couple years ago we flew in to San Jose and took the train in to SF itself. Why would anyone expect Orbitz to provide transport from the San Jose airport to San Francisco? And why the hell did he take a cab and not the transit system?
Besides that, there is no airport actually IN SF, is there?
Don't get me wrong, Orbitz does suck, and they suck HARD. But this guy did this to himself.
Joey 04.06.06 - 2:55 am

The San Francisco Airport isn't actually in San Francisco, but it is pretty close to San Francisco. I mean, yeah, if the guy had carefully examined the details of the itinerary before giving Orbitz his credit card number, then he would have known that it was an impossible itinerary, just like how he realized that after the fact. The point is, I think it's reasonable to consider Orbitz putting impossible itineraries up for sale on their website to be a refund-worthy mistake.
As far as why he would take a cab instead of the transit system, which transit system are you talking about? Caltrain? A cab would be much faster.
Edward Carter 04.06.06 - 9:09 am

A cab is faster, but his complaint was the cost. The train would be a hell of a lot cheaper.
Joey 04.06.06 - 10:55 am

Only a cab would have even come close to getting him to SFO in time to catch the connecting flight Orbitz gave him.
Edward Carter 04.06.06 - 3:12 pm

OH! He had a connecting flight in San Fran? See, I stopped reading when he said that his flight went to San Jose and he was pissed because they didn't get him into San Fran. I didn't realize time was an issue in that way. My bad. Man, Orbitz does SUCK!
Joey 04.12.06 - 7:45 pm