A story about how I tried to go to Japan but failed

This week all posts were supposed to be typed and published on Japan’s zany future time zone, but alas, I am still in good ol’ California. Good ol’ dry, blistering hot, crap for brains, won’t let gays get married, California. Also home of the SFO airport, where the dumbest human beings IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and DESERVE NOTHING IN LIFE.

Also, you should know that I’m sick, and sickness usually has a strange kind of effect on my behavior. In fact, this bout, which started on Thursday, was so bad that what I thought was the tickle of a stray hair shimmying its way down my front was actually beads of sweat. Gathering together and plotting my demise.

Anyway. So off I went on Saturday to the airport with a single carryon and the tail end of the plague, ready to experience foreign lands and maybe, just maybe, a public bath or two. I had fifty minutes to check in which is usually fine, but as I walked over to the United check-in area, I noticed an awfully long line. Not just at security, but everywhere else, too. Nervous, I felt it would be better to expedite the process instead of my usual tactic, which is to wander around until I figure out where to go. So I ask this guy, we’ll call him Tall Thin Stupid Dude, where to get my boarding pass. TTSD looks at my ticket and says with an obligatory smile, “If you don’t have to check in a bag, you can get your boarding pass at one of the machines over there” and he then points to a machine.

So I go to a machine. It asks me for a confirmation number. Then I spend ten minutes punching in every single mother fucking number I can find on my ticket. None of them work. Enter my friend Arwen into the equation (she drove me to the airport) who says, “Pick up that receiver there and ask for help.” So I pick up the receiver and the kind lady on the other end, after typing my name into her magical computer, says, “You have a paper ticket, and people with paper tickets have to check in manually.” I thank her and find the next nearest United worker, we’ll call her Short Stout Stupid Chick, and say, “Excuse me, but apparently I have to check in manually if I have a paper ticket?” SSSC looks at my ticket and says, “Your flight is in 30 minutes. You’re not going to make it, but go stand in line over there” and she points to a line.

Discouraged, I go to the line and wait for another 5 years before the person at the counter looks at my ticket and says, “You’re in the wrong line. This is for first class customers only.” I’m not sure what happened at this point. Either I screamed or the sheer rage emanating from my body started to glow, but a third United employee found his way to my side and the conversation went something like this:

Older Non Listening Dude: What’s wrong?

Me: I was told to stand in this line but it’s the wrong line and now I’m going to miss my flight.

ONLD: Who told you that?

Me: That woman over th-

ONLD: Where are you from?

Me: The east bay but—

ONLD: So you were late?

Me: What? No, but first that guy over there told me to go to a machine an—

ONLD: What guy?

Me: The guy with th—

ONLD: This is what I’m gonna do for you, RICHARD!

Richard turned out to be one of the guys who checks people in in the area I was supposed to check in. I didn’t mind him so much; he reminded me of Denzel Washington. After ONLD alerted him, he told the next person in line to wait so I could cut in. After reviewing my info, Fake Denzel informed me as politely as he could (but in that very direct and wonderful Denzel way) that he couldn’t check me in because it was now 20 minutes until my flight’s departure, so he put me on standby for the next flight.

Fast forward to the gate for the standby flight. I approach the woman at the counter and say, “I’m on the waitlist, so I have to-” and the woman, we’ll call her Heinous Bitch, I Bet Your Parents Hate You, interrupts with “WAIT.” (Bitch!!)

Dejected, irritated, sick, I go over to a chair and watch the line of people with REAL TICKETS load up the plane. Then, just as the last ticket holder boards and I’m about to go back over and have a pleasant chat with HBIBYPHY, this family of three runs up to the counter and acts like a pack of wild monkeys, flailing their arms and standby tickets around, drooling and shit. Then they board the plane. Then HBIBYPHY looks at me and says, “I’m sorry, the flight is full.” And I’m like, “But I was here first! I’m supposed to transfer from L.A. to a flight to Japan!” And she says, “But they had a higher priority than you. You can go to the Customer Service line and talk to them about getting a different flight.”

So I go to the customer service line and wait for AN HOUR. During that hour a few things happen: 1. Another plane to L.A. leaves. 2. Another plane to L.A. leaves. 3. I realize HBIBYPHY didn’t even look at my ticket and wonder how she could’ve known that the family of chimps had higher priority than me. By the time I finally get to a customer service agent, all of the flights that would’ve gotten me to LAX in time to catch my flight to Narita are long gone. The customer service woman (she was a nice lady, we won’t nickname her) reviews my sad situation and asks, “Why did you come to the customer service line?” I respond by pointing so hard at HBIBYPHY that I think my arm is going to pop right out of its socket. Then I say, as if words could kill, “Because SHE told me to!” The customer service woman looks at me over some silly looking half-moon lenses and says, “Well, for future reference, when you miss a flight your name is transferred to the waitlist of the next departing flight. You didn’t have to wait in this line.”

She then reschedules my flight for Friday at no charge. She also knocks the L.A. stop off entirely, so now I get to enjoy a direct flight to Narita. We like her.

Back in the car after Arwen picked my sorry ass up she said, “I asked one of the United workers to check if you had gotten on the plane. He looked up your name and told me you had, in fact, not gotten on the standby flight which was odd because it still had seats left.”

This is the part where my brain exploded and I died.

Sigh. We’ll try again on Friday.