Travel Recap, PT II: Chitown to Beantown
The plane lands in Chicago O'Hare and I get off the plane* walk up the jetway unassisted (much to the chagrin of at least one flight attendant; I don't really understand why they think a blind person would need help walking *OFF* a plane, it's basically a straight line to the door and you can hear where that is, and jetways aren't particularly confusing.) Anyway, I'm at the gate, and wait ... and wait ... and wait ... for assistance to baggage claim.
One of the reasons I don't like to check bagage -- besides the reasons that many people don't like checking baggage -- is that it also means that I will need extra assistance in getting my bag, and the ability of meet-and-assist people to understand and process bag descriptions is wildly divergent. But, I hope for the best and follow my assigned assistor baggage-claimward.
Most people have already come and gone and grabbed their stuff by the time I get there. "It's a smallish green suitcase style bag with wheels."
They can see nothing of the sort. (Please don't be sent to London, please don't be sent to London. All Pepper's food, and my laptop is in there. Please don't be sent to London.)
The first possibility approaches on the belt. But it is an olive green duffle, not a small roller suitcase with wheels. (Please don't be sent to London.)
"Do you know what kind of green it is?"
"The sales description said leaf green."
A prolonged discussion then proceeds between two guys about what constitutes leaf green. "It could be a spring leaf, or it could depend on what kind of leaf ..." (Or green can be big like a river, or important like a mountain or tall like a tree. Please don't be sent to London.)
"It also said it was leaf green and tungsten. But I only know that that's the filament in lightbulbs ..." (and the chemical symbol W, but I don't share that), "not what color it is."**
Finally, the bag approaches, I relax, grateful that this experience was more amusing than harrowing, and we head off to the cab stand, where I catch a cab out to the Embassy Suites in Lombard, where I and my team members will be staying.
The rest of the week is uneventful, including the positive uneventfulness that Pepper and her arch-nemesis (elsewhere referred to as the little German shepherd named Diva) have no major altercations, just the occasional exchange of "I know you are, but what am I"s.
We confirm that the laptops we'll need for the training classes in a week or so will all be imaged with the same software, and finish prep for the conference.
I am also fascinated by the farm reports and commodities reports that I find while flipping channels on the radio. I think we could learn a lot about the real state of the country by listening to regional radio. I knew about the floods in the Mid-West, but hadn't heard anything about drouts in Texas.
Friday morning, I eat breakfast and catch a cab back to O'Hare. Because I made my reservation so late (because of work logistics) I couldn't get a reasonably priced direct flight to Boston. Instead I will be flying to St. Louis (waves to markw) and to Boston from there.
Again, there are issues with my seating. This time, I know the seats were not reserved, because the seat selection pages on the airline's web site aren't accessible. I explain the situation, and that the ideal situation is a nonbulkhead window seat with the center seat unoccupied. The flight is not crowded, and the counter agent gives me exactly that. Content and well-fed, I proceed to the gate.
At boarding, I'm stopped by the gate agent. "You don't have a bulkhead seat. Let me see if I can change it for you."
"No. That's okay. I requested this."
"But you need a bulkhead seat for the dog."
"No. I don't. This is exactly what I want."
I start toward the jetway and am stopped again, this time by a couple of guys at the entrance (the pilots?). "Where's she sitting?"
"8A."
"She needs to be sitting in the bulkhead."
"She says she doesn't want to."
"Let me have the rule book. She has to it's in the rules."
"No," I say, "It's not."
"Yes it is. You need to sit in the bulkhead."
"No, I don't."
"For the dog."
"She goes under the seat in front of me."
"There's no room for her there."
"Yes, there is."
"No, there isn't." (Uppity blind girl; don't you know that we all have working eyeballs and are all therefore smarter and more useful than you are? And we are trying to help you.)
"I do it all the time." I neglect to ask how many service dogs they've flown with.
"And there is nothing in the FAA regulations that requires service dogs to fly in the bulkhead."
... "Well, the rest of the row you're in is clear so we'll let you do it."
Let me! Well golly gee big mister know-it-all, you'll let me sit in the seat I requested that is the best place for me and the dog and is not inconveniencing anyone. Thank you so very much! Ratzinfratzin frackarack.
I'd never understood people's complaints about O'Hare airport before, but I begin to. The plane is delayed for take off on the runway and because of an incoming thunderstorm, will be detouring and be 10-15 minutes longer in the air.
For a short flight, I am in the plane for a very long time. Upon landing, I exit the plane quickly, look around for the meet-and-assist to my connecting flight, who is not there, and decide to walk it myself. Before landing, they'd identified our gate as C-8 and the gate for Boston as c-24. Same concourse. I can do this.
Somebody tells me that C-24 is all the way down on the left, and Pepper, I and my leaf green bag head out at a reasonably brisk pace.
I pause at one gate to see where I am. "C-19."
Excellent. I walk until I can hear escalators nearby, obviously the end of the concourse and ask which gate is on my left. "C-24."
Excellent again! Except ... it seems ... awfully ... quiet for a gate with a soon-departing flight.
I step into the seating area.
"Is this C-24?"
"It sure is! To Dallas?"
Ruh-roh. Maybe it's just a gate change.
"Thanks," I say, and step back into the concourse and adopt the "I'm lost" look that not infrequently helps me get assistance (except, I should note, in Seattle). "Can I help you?"
I tell him I'm looking for the flight to Boston and he helpfully looks on the board.
"There's nothing to Boston listed."
Ratzinfratzin ... He helps me find a gate with an airline person at the counter.
"She's trying to find the flight to Boston."
"That flight left at 12:30."
"But my flight wasn't on the ground until 12:35!"
"There are no other direct flights to Boston today."
"Is there anything? Other airlines?" Also, it is now 12:45, and those eggs and hashbrowns at 7 are seeming quite a while ago. This is not helping me stay patient.
He tappity-taps on his keyboard, and finally says, "We can get you into Boston by 8:10 tonight." (My original arrival time was 4, and I hope that I have the phone number(s) of the friend who's supposed to pick me up in my cell phone.) "You leave out of C-6 at 1:35. I'll call somebody to assist."
"Where am I being routed through?"
"Chicago ..."
"You're kidding me!" I ... hate ... the ... world.
I get to the gate, pull out the phone and realize that I was a dope and did not have the needed phone number in my phone. I do have the email address, and send V an email with the information. But unlike so many of my friends, she doesn't obsessively check her mail. I hope for the best, and accept the bulkhead seat they've assigned me with no protest. I'm hungry and worried and have clearly angered the aeroplane gods.
I make sure that I will get assistance back at O'Hare and apologize to the flight attendant for being cranky. After hearing my story she and the guy sitting next to me, say there's no apology needed; they'd be cranky too.
At O'Hare begin the negotiations ... the dog will need to be walked, and I will need food. "You can walk the dog outside the airport."
"Is there anyone who can take her out without going through security?"
"We don't have any place to do that."
This surprises me, because on other occasions there have been airline/airport staff who have been willing to take the dog out to a patch of dirt ... on the tarmac even; and they must have to take the security dogs somewhere. But helpfulness is not a priority here.
And I am highly reluctant to have to go through security again with the dog, and the laptop, and what all.
The guy who has been sent to assist me (who sounds like he might be a high school or college kid on break) offers to take the dog out through security and bring her back. I agree.
"And there's food throughout the airport."
"Is the airline going to pay for that?"
"What?"
"Are you going to cover a meal? I'm stuck here through no fault of my own and get into my destination 4 hours later than planned."
"What happened?"
I explain the roundtrip to the St. Louis airport and she reluctantly hands over a $10 voucher. Which gets spent all in one place ... McDonalds. The cashier asks if I want to order anything else since there is no change from vouchers and I ask helper guy if he wants anything. He graciously declines, saying he's off work in an hour and can get food then.
With myself fed and the dog relieved, we go to the gate where I sit and wait and read (I have no idea what I'd do without my bookreader dealy). My phone rings ...
It's V. "Are they holding you hostage?"
"Yes ... In Chicago. I take it you didn't get my email. I'm an idiot and forgot to save your number. I'm so sorry."
"Oh no!"
I give her the new flight information, apologizing for the pain I'm being, and make a point of entering her number into my contacts immediately. I'm in another bulkhead seat, and don't argue. I just keep my feet tucked near me and try to keep Pepper from sprawling across the row, onto the feet of my seatmates.
The flight lands at Logan on schedule, and my friends are there waiting for me. But it should not take 8-and-a-half hours to get from Chicago to Boston.
* I've seen "disembark", "debark" and "deplane" used. They all seem wrong.
** I just looked it up on Wikipedia. Apparently it's silver grey. But OMG, how much do I wish I'd had this in AP chemistry class! The element information is all there! In accessible form! How much easier would it have made my life than having to slowly page through a bulky copy of the CRC with an Optacon!
One of the reasons I don't like to check bagage -- besides the reasons that many people don't like checking baggage -- is that it also means that I will need extra assistance in getting my bag, and the ability of meet-and-assist people to understand and process bag descriptions is wildly divergent. But, I hope for the best and follow my assigned assistor baggage-claimward.
Most people have already come and gone and grabbed their stuff by the time I get there. "It's a smallish green suitcase style bag with wheels."
They can see nothing of the sort. (Please don't be sent to London, please don't be sent to London. All Pepper's food, and my laptop is in there. Please don't be sent to London.)
The first possibility approaches on the belt. But it is an olive green duffle, not a small roller suitcase with wheels. (Please don't be sent to London.)
"Do you know what kind of green it is?"
"The sales description said leaf green."
A prolonged discussion then proceeds between two guys about what constitutes leaf green. "It could be a spring leaf, or it could depend on what kind of leaf ..." (Or green can be big like a river, or important like a mountain or tall like a tree. Please don't be sent to London.)
"It also said it was leaf green and tungsten. But I only know that that's the filament in lightbulbs ..." (and the chemical symbol W, but I don't share that), "not what color it is."**
Finally, the bag approaches, I relax, grateful that this experience was more amusing than harrowing, and we head off to the cab stand, where I catch a cab out to the Embassy Suites in Lombard, where I and my team members will be staying.
The rest of the week is uneventful, including the positive uneventfulness that Pepper and her arch-nemesis (elsewhere referred to as the little German shepherd named Diva) have no major altercations, just the occasional exchange of "I know you are, but what am I"s.
We confirm that the laptops we'll need for the training classes in a week or so will all be imaged with the same software, and finish prep for the conference.
I am also fascinated by the farm reports and commodities reports that I find while flipping channels on the radio. I think we could learn a lot about the real state of the country by listening to regional radio. I knew about the floods in the Mid-West, but hadn't heard anything about drouts in Texas.
Friday morning, I eat breakfast and catch a cab back to O'Hare. Because I made my reservation so late (because of work logistics) I couldn't get a reasonably priced direct flight to Boston. Instead I will be flying to St. Louis (waves to markw) and to Boston from there.
Again, there are issues with my seating. This time, I know the seats were not reserved, because the seat selection pages on the airline's web site aren't accessible. I explain the situation, and that the ideal situation is a nonbulkhead window seat with the center seat unoccupied. The flight is not crowded, and the counter agent gives me exactly that. Content and well-fed, I proceed to the gate.
At boarding, I'm stopped by the gate agent. "You don't have a bulkhead seat. Let me see if I can change it for you."
"No. That's okay. I requested this."
"But you need a bulkhead seat for the dog."
"No. I don't. This is exactly what I want."
I start toward the jetway and am stopped again, this time by a couple of guys at the entrance (the pilots?). "Where's she sitting?"
"8A."
"She needs to be sitting in the bulkhead."
"She says she doesn't want to."
"Let me have the rule book. She has to it's in the rules."
"No," I say, "It's not."
"Yes it is. You need to sit in the bulkhead."
"No, I don't."
"For the dog."
"She goes under the seat in front of me."
"There's no room for her there."
"Yes, there is."
"No, there isn't." (Uppity blind girl; don't you know that we all have working eyeballs and are all therefore smarter and more useful than you are? And we are trying to help you.)
"I do it all the time." I neglect to ask how many service dogs they've flown with.
"And there is nothing in the FAA regulations that requires service dogs to fly in the bulkhead."
... "Well, the rest of the row you're in is clear so we'll let you do it."
Let me! Well golly gee big mister know-it-all, you'll let me sit in the seat I requested that is the best place for me and the dog and is not inconveniencing anyone. Thank you so very much! Ratzinfratzin frackarack.
I'd never understood people's complaints about O'Hare airport before, but I begin to. The plane is delayed for take off on the runway and because of an incoming thunderstorm, will be detouring and be 10-15 minutes longer in the air.
For a short flight, I am in the plane for a very long time. Upon landing, I exit the plane quickly, look around for the meet-and-assist to my connecting flight, who is not there, and decide to walk it myself. Before landing, they'd identified our gate as C-8 and the gate for Boston as c-24. Same concourse. I can do this.
Somebody tells me that C-24 is all the way down on the left, and Pepper, I and my leaf green bag head out at a reasonably brisk pace.
I pause at one gate to see where I am. "C-19."
Excellent. I walk until I can hear escalators nearby, obviously the end of the concourse and ask which gate is on my left. "C-24."
Excellent again! Except ... it seems ... awfully ... quiet for a gate with a soon-departing flight.
I step into the seating area.
"Is this C-24?"
"It sure is! To Dallas?"
Ruh-roh. Maybe it's just a gate change.
"Thanks," I say, and step back into the concourse and adopt the "I'm lost" look that not infrequently helps me get assistance (except, I should note, in Seattle). "Can I help you?"
I tell him I'm looking for the flight to Boston and he helpfully looks on the board.
"There's nothing to Boston listed."
Ratzinfratzin ... He helps me find a gate with an airline person at the counter.
"She's trying to find the flight to Boston."
"That flight left at 12:30."
"But my flight wasn't on the ground until 12:35!"
"There are no other direct flights to Boston today."
"Is there anything? Other airlines?" Also, it is now 12:45, and those eggs and hashbrowns at 7 are seeming quite a while ago. This is not helping me stay patient.
He tappity-taps on his keyboard, and finally says, "We can get you into Boston by 8:10 tonight." (My original arrival time was 4, and I hope that I have the phone number(s) of the friend who's supposed to pick me up in my cell phone.) "You leave out of C-6 at 1:35. I'll call somebody to assist."
"Where am I being routed through?"
"Chicago ..."
"You're kidding me!" I ... hate ... the ... world.
I get to the gate, pull out the phone and realize that I was a dope and did not have the needed phone number in my phone. I do have the email address, and send V an email with the information. But unlike so many of my friends, she doesn't obsessively check her mail. I hope for the best, and accept the bulkhead seat they've assigned me with no protest. I'm hungry and worried and have clearly angered the aeroplane gods.
I make sure that I will get assistance back at O'Hare and apologize to the flight attendant for being cranky. After hearing my story she and the guy sitting next to me, say there's no apology needed; they'd be cranky too.
At O'Hare begin the negotiations ... the dog will need to be walked, and I will need food. "You can walk the dog outside the airport."
"Is there anyone who can take her out without going through security?"
"We don't have any place to do that."
This surprises me, because on other occasions there have been airline/airport staff who have been willing to take the dog out to a patch of dirt ... on the tarmac even; and they must have to take the security dogs somewhere. But helpfulness is not a priority here.
And I am highly reluctant to have to go through security again with the dog, and the laptop, and what all.
The guy who has been sent to assist me (who sounds like he might be a high school or college kid on break) offers to take the dog out through security and bring her back. I agree.
"And there's food throughout the airport."
"Is the airline going to pay for that?"
"What?"
"Are you going to cover a meal? I'm stuck here through no fault of my own and get into my destination 4 hours later than planned."
"What happened?"
I explain the roundtrip to the St. Louis airport and she reluctantly hands over a $10 voucher. Which gets spent all in one place ... McDonalds. The cashier asks if I want to order anything else since there is no change from vouchers and I ask helper guy if he wants anything. He graciously declines, saying he's off work in an hour and can get food then.
With myself fed and the dog relieved, we go to the gate where I sit and wait and read (I have no idea what I'd do without my bookreader dealy). My phone rings ...
It's V. "Are they holding you hostage?"
"Yes ... In Chicago. I take it you didn't get my email. I'm an idiot and forgot to save your number. I'm so sorry."
"Oh no!"
I give her the new flight information, apologizing for the pain I'm being, and make a point of entering her number into my contacts immediately. I'm in another bulkhead seat, and don't argue. I just keep my feet tucked near me and try to keep Pepper from sprawling across the row, onto the feet of my seatmates.
The flight lands at Logan on schedule, and my friends are there waiting for me. But it should not take 8-and-a-half hours to get from Chicago to Boston.
* I've seen "disembark", "debark" and "deplane" used. They all seem wrong.
** I just looked it up on Wikipedia. Apparently it's silver grey. But OMG, how much do I wish I'd had this in AP chemistry class! The element information is all there! In accessible form! How much easier would it have made my life than having to slowly page through a bulky copy of the CRC with an Optacon!