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My Body Has Arrived in Friday Harbor

My brains haven’t yet adjusted to their new time zone.

I flew out of Hawaii on Northwest Airlines.  They weighed my bag — they have a 50 pound  limit — and it came in at 52 pounds.  I was told I would have to pay $90.00 extra for the overage.  Mind you, had I put all my stuff in two bags, rather than just the one, I would have only had to pay $15.00 per bag.  So what if two bags would actually take up more room and ultimately weigh even more than 52 pounds.  This isn’t about logic, it’s about rules, regulations, and making a profit.

The bossy helpful enforcer courtesy agent told me that instead of paying, I could just remove two pound of my possessions and leave them behind.  I stared at her in disbelief.  She then said, “If that option doesn’t appeal to you, you can always put on 2 pounds of clothing.”

So, mind you, it is not the weight going on the airplane that is the issue.   It is where the weight is distributed.  I opened up my suitcase and removed my coat — which I put on — and my camera.  We reweighed the bag and it came in at 49.5 pounds.  She didn’t offer me a 45 cent refund for coming in 1.5 pounds under weight. (see comments, Melli corrected my math — see also my first sentence above)

I went to the lounge and waited two hours for my flight, not noticing until just before boarding time that my ticket had no seat assignment.  I went to the ticket counter and told the attendant I hadn’t been assigned a seat.  He told me that it didn’t matter, that the only people with assigned seats had paid extra for the privilege. I believed him.

When general boarding was called, I got in line.  The attendant who took my ticket said, “You have to go back and get a seat assignment!”  I told her that I’d asked for a seat assignment, and was told I didn’t need one.  She sent me back to the check-in desk.  I gave my ticket to the guy who told me I didn’t need a seat assignment and said, “Let’s try this again.  I need a seat assignment.”  He said, “Fine.  I’ll see what’s left.”  Then he assigned me to a middle seat — and suggested I might want to upgrade to First Class for an extra $250.00.  I asked him if my middle seat in the center of coach was going to the same place as first class.  The guy behind me laughed, but the ticket agent just gave me a sour look and my cramped seating assignment.

I landed in Seattle at 5:30 a.m. PDST.  That was equavalent to 2:30 a.m. Hawaii time.  I got very little sleep on the plane, crunched in the middle the way I was.  Still, I’d made it to Seattle, so all was well …

The help desk in SeaTac airport was deserted.  I guess one isn’t supposed to need help at 5:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning.   I found one employee who tried to hail me a cab, when that is not what I asked for.  I wanted to know where to catch the shuttle bus to the Kenmore Air terminal.  No one I asked knew.  There were no helpful signs pointing the way.

I called Amoeba on the phone.  He said, “Kenmore Air pick-up is at terminal door 00.  Head south from where you are…”

“South!?  I have no idea where I am or what direction I’m going.  Not only are there no signs directing me to door 00, there are no signs that read North, South, East , or West!”  A bit of logic backed up by seek-and-find helped me figure out where I was and where I should be.  The baggage carousels and the terminal doors share the same numbers.  Door 00 — the last door (or the first door) in the terminal — has no baggage carousel.  However it did have a help desk for charter air services.  Kenmore Air was listed prominently on the wall.

Despite the fact that I was exhausted and hadn’t eaten since 2:00 p.m. the previous afternoon (NWA did give me a few ounces of water and a bag of peanuts), my flight with Kenmore Air was wonderful and stress free.  I took photos so be sure to look for them after Punny Monday tomorrow.

Right now I am just too tired to fuss with photos.

29 Comments

  2. Oh my gosh…I’ll bet you were burning up in that coat and it was probably a hassle to deal with once you got on the plane. Sounds like Harry Potter catching the Hogwarts train at platform 9 3/4.

    Get some sleep and some food and we’ll see you whenever you feel up to it and get over the jet lag. I thought we would perish when we flew back to Texas from Hawaii. Needless to say it was a very laid back Christmas.

    amberstar’s last blog post..My Daddy Really Was the Milkman one more time

  3. Oh gosh, flying HAS gotten unpleasant. Normally very patient in these types of situations, knowing that most of the time the staff has no control over the unpleasantness. But I think that it would have taken all my restraint not to be at least a little passive aggressive with the ticket counter guy at the second visit when he said, “Fine. I’ll see what’s left.”

    But I am glad that you arrived at your intended destination and are with your honey bunny (presumably). Have a good rest. 🙂

    1. Cherie, believe me, my tone of voice left him in no doubt of how I felt. Honey and I are together again, as it should be!

    1. Nessa, I didn’t even tell you about the guy who refused to wait on me because I had two toes over the yellow line.

  5. That will teach ya to fly NWA. What customer service Q. If I were you I would make sure that you email this post to NWA customer service. They should read about all of this. Remember my FTD rant? Same smell….go get ’em woman when you get some much needed sleep. BTW…you have left ugly weather hear today. It can’t decide if it want’s to rain or not. Such is life. Glad you made it in one piece

    Thom’s last blog post..Father’s Day and Sunday Stealing – The Finish The Sentence Meme

  6. The reason they didn’t give you the $.45 discount is because you only came in .5 lb under — had it been a whole 1.5 I’m suuuuuuuuuuuure they would refunded you! 😉 It’s ok Quill – I don’t expect your math skills to be up to peak performance after all you’ve been through! I hope by NOW you have had a bite to eat, and some TLC from the amoeba — and maybe even some sleep! Can’t wait to see the pics!

    Melli’s last blog post..Summer Stock Sunday … Happy Father’s Day!

  7. Glad you arrived safely, and hope you can get some sleep and get readjusted to the different time zone soon.

    I honestly hate to travel, for a variety of reasons.

    Some years ago we were all flying somewhere, tight after they started checking shoes. When they told us to take our shoes off, my looked frowned and looked askance, not in a protesting or upset way, but more like an “That’s odd, I wonder why” way, and the security guard in charge jumped all over him. My mama bear instaincts rose up, but to say anything would probably have made it worse. Some of those people are on a power trip.

    Barbara H.’s last blog post..Father’s Day

    1. Barbara — if they didn’t change the rules every time one goes into the airport, it would be a lot easier to keep up.

  8. Welcome to Washington!
    Glad you made it to the rock safe and sound. Your little mention of Kenmore made me miss my wild and crazy days of hitching a ride with those guys…ahhh….the good old days.
    You’re right…those Kenmore Air folks are fabulous!

    Shelly’s last blog post..The Dizzy Gardener

    1. Tony — yes. Here I am too tired to take the camera and walk out to the garden for flower pics. In fact, I am contemplating going back to bed!

    1. OJM — I checked my sense of humor at the airport, but it seems to have arrived here with me, some what the worse for wear, but apparently mending.

  11. Quilly Glad you made it and now rest and relax and have yerself some fun.

    NWA Sounds like such a Fun Way to Fly ;( Making such a fuss over 2 extra pounds, Oh well now ye know what to expect next time.

    Bill’s last blog post..Clouds

    1. Oh dear — imagine my 5 hour flight with toilet charges! I wouldn’t have drank the four ounces of water they gave me — their extravagant complementary gift.

    1. Betty — today I didn’t go out and have a good time. I stayed in and rested. I made breakfast for Amoeba and cleaned up after, I had a nap, then I made lunch for the both of us, cleaned up after, emptied the non-working fridge, stocked the new old fridge which works just fine — and went and bought more groceries to stock it even further (and so I could make chocolate chip cookies). Then I started dinner, ate, cleaned up and now I am about to do a load of laundry. Doesn’t that sound like vacation to you? Oh, in there somewhere I visited some blogs and posted on my own.

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