4th of July partial weekend
I was back in Michigan this weekend for my mom's recovery from her surgery. Can't remember if I wrote about my/Northwest's fuckup for my flight to Detroit, but to sum up, their website sucks and is confusing and to not pay $400 to change my flight, I had to take another day off work (Thursday) and fly home redeye Wednesday night. Redeyes are crap, but I slept a bit, and it allowed me to adjust myself to eastern time much easier. My dad picked me up from the airport, and then we stopped at Barry Bagels for some breakfast. Who works there (and either didn't see me, didn't recognize me - which is a good thing bc I looked like crap on a crapbiscuit) but John Martin! He's gained like 25 pounds and I totally thought he majored in film and was out here somewhere in LA working with the American Pie ppl (can't remember who I heard that one from) but turns out he's still (or back) in A2 working with food. Heh. I am not bitter, nor am I mean. Nor do I wish bad things upon those who have hurt me. Anyway, I went home, saw mom, noticed she'd lost a lot of weight (turns out 12 pounds, but it's all in her face and upper body...her face is much more... much less... it just looks sicker I guess). She's fine, though, not taking any pain meds and the only thing that's bothering her is her throat. She has always had throat problems, and turns out that when they put in the breathing tube, they scratched part of her throat, so she's having trouble eating solid foods and swallowing pills, but compared to the pain she could be having elsewhere on her body, this isn't bad. Anyway, hang with mom and dad, catch up, do chores (reason number 2 why I'm there), relax. Hil comes home, we hang, everything is nice.
Spent the weekend doing more chores, cooking a bit, going on errands, cleaning the basement (there are far too many spiders in this world), going through things in my room (getting rid of old things, figuring out what I'd eventually like to move out here with me) and whatnot. oh, and getting my mother and sister totally and completely into LOST. heh. I had brought the first season with me, and after watching the first disc, my sister claimed it was too slow and not enough action, so didn't really like it, but mom stuck it out, and it was after the episode "Walkabout" with Locke's backstory, that they were both like !!! And once they got the Frenchwoman's thingie, they were totally hooked. HA. And when I called them to let them know my flight had landed safely yesterday, they had borrowed the first season from a friend and were continuing on the LOST journey. Yay!
Mom cried Monday, when she knew I was going to leave Tuesday, and also Tuesday, when I was about to leave. It's really hard to watch a sick person (who is also your mother) cry because of you. And then dad had wet eyes when he dropped me off as well, which is even harder, beacuse he's dad. I just wish I could cut the whole leaving part of vacations at home, and just, like, poof and disappear. It makes it worse when it's all drawn out.
Anyway, my Northwest story isn't as bad as Becky's United story, but when they and I fucked up initially, their customer service people were nothing but rude to me, and then, after I arrived at LAX, to find my non-luggage, the person I talked to in luggage (to try and find mine) was very nice and said that my luggage was on the next flight from Detroit to LAX, would be there around 1pm, and then would be delivered that afternoon. I accepted that and went home. One whole lazy day of nothing later (watched Layer Cake and Cold Mountain. I give layer cake 2 out of 5 for being interesting and 4 out of 5 for being innovative and fun to watch, but the plot was crap in my opinion. Cold Mountain was much better than I thought and I liked Jude Law until he shaved off his beard and looked creepy, and I really liked Renee Zellweger, who I don't usually like, but her performance in this film was wonderful), still hadn't received my luggage. I keep calling and calling and get the same message that my luggage has arrived and been picked up by their delivery guy and he will be calling me with more info later. I call the NW customer service people multiple times, and they get ruder and ruder with each passing hour. I understand it's the 4th, I understand that you don't want to be working, that you're probably getting bitched at by people whose luggage you've misplace as well, but you know what? Don't be rude to me if I'm not being rude to you. I tell you that I understand it's the 4th and that you're probably stressed out, I apologize for being demanding, all I want to know is the status of my luggage, if I'm going to get it by tonight, if coming to the airport and just getting it myself would work. Rudeness in response. So I am very upset at NW. Finally I get ahold of the LAX luggage ppl that helped me in the first place, and the woman who answers sounds SO tired and fed up. I am as nice as I can be to her, she tells me exactly where my luggage is and even gives me an estimated arrival time. She is so polite and kind to me, that I have forgiven the little people who carry out the evil deeds of NW, but not The Man of NW. 10pm rolls around, get a call from luggage deliverer, who says around midnight I will get luggage. I am tired and jetlagged, but I need things from my suitcase, so i stay up. Midnight comes and goes, 1am comes and goes and by this time I'm drifting in and out of sleep. Maggie wakes me up at 1:30 to go to the bathroom, I take her out, and decide to call again. They say someone will be there shortly, they just left. I go back inside and as soon as I walk in the door I get the call that someone is outside. I go out there, a few bucks in hand, knowing that even if this person is also rude, that it's still the 4th of July at 2am. I get my luggage, hand him the tip, he is very grateful and incredibly apologetic, which just goes to show that the little people of NW are not so bad, it's everyone else who sucks.
I get the the office this morning, tell Armand and Ephraim my tale of woe (heh), and Ephraim tells me that now that I've flown Northwest, he can tell me that they outsource all of their maintenance people to the cheapest ones... reason number a million not to fly them ever again.
Spent the weekend doing more chores, cooking a bit, going on errands, cleaning the basement (there are far too many spiders in this world), going through things in my room (getting rid of old things, figuring out what I'd eventually like to move out here with me) and whatnot. oh, and getting my mother and sister totally and completely into LOST. heh. I had brought the first season with me, and after watching the first disc, my sister claimed it was too slow and not enough action, so didn't really like it, but mom stuck it out, and it was after the episode "Walkabout" with Locke's backstory, that they were both like !!! And once they got the Frenchwoman's thingie, they were totally hooked. HA. And when I called them to let them know my flight had landed safely yesterday, they had borrowed the first season from a friend and were continuing on the LOST journey. Yay!
Mom cried Monday, when she knew I was going to leave Tuesday, and also Tuesday, when I was about to leave. It's really hard to watch a sick person (who is also your mother) cry because of you. And then dad had wet eyes when he dropped me off as well, which is even harder, beacuse he's dad. I just wish I could cut the whole leaving part of vacations at home, and just, like, poof and disappear. It makes it worse when it's all drawn out.
Anyway, my Northwest story isn't as bad as Becky's United story, but when they and I fucked up initially, their customer service people were nothing but rude to me, and then, after I arrived at LAX, to find my non-luggage, the person I talked to in luggage (to try and find mine) was very nice and said that my luggage was on the next flight from Detroit to LAX, would be there around 1pm, and then would be delivered that afternoon. I accepted that and went home. One whole lazy day of nothing later (watched Layer Cake and Cold Mountain. I give layer cake 2 out of 5 for being interesting and 4 out of 5 for being innovative and fun to watch, but the plot was crap in my opinion. Cold Mountain was much better than I thought and I liked Jude Law until he shaved off his beard and looked creepy, and I really liked Renee Zellweger, who I don't usually like, but her performance in this film was wonderful), still hadn't received my luggage. I keep calling and calling and get the same message that my luggage has arrived and been picked up by their delivery guy and he will be calling me with more info later. I call the NW customer service people multiple times, and they get ruder and ruder with each passing hour. I understand it's the 4th, I understand that you don't want to be working, that you're probably getting bitched at by people whose luggage you've misplace as well, but you know what? Don't be rude to me if I'm not being rude to you. I tell you that I understand it's the 4th and that you're probably stressed out, I apologize for being demanding, all I want to know is the status of my luggage, if I'm going to get it by tonight, if coming to the airport and just getting it myself would work. Rudeness in response. So I am very upset at NW. Finally I get ahold of the LAX luggage ppl that helped me in the first place, and the woman who answers sounds SO tired and fed up. I am as nice as I can be to her, she tells me exactly where my luggage is and even gives me an estimated arrival time. She is so polite and kind to me, that I have forgiven the little people who carry out the evil deeds of NW, but not The Man of NW. 10pm rolls around, get a call from luggage deliverer, who says around midnight I will get luggage. I am tired and jetlagged, but I need things from my suitcase, so i stay up. Midnight comes and goes, 1am comes and goes and by this time I'm drifting in and out of sleep. Maggie wakes me up at 1:30 to go to the bathroom, I take her out, and decide to call again. They say someone will be there shortly, they just left. I go back inside and as soon as I walk in the door I get the call that someone is outside. I go out there, a few bucks in hand, knowing that even if this person is also rude, that it's still the 4th of July at 2am. I get my luggage, hand him the tip, he is very grateful and incredibly apologetic, which just goes to show that the little people of NW are not so bad, it's everyone else who sucks.
I get the the office this morning, tell Armand and Ephraim my tale of woe (heh), and Ephraim tells me that now that I've flown Northwest, he can tell me that they outsource all of their maintenance people to the cheapest ones... reason number a million not to fly them ever again.