Brian's Travelogue Part 1
A little over a month ago, my sister rang me up and our conversation went as follows:
"Hello, Michelle."
"Hello, Brian, are you planning on coming home for Mother's Birthday?"
"Well, I hadn't really planned on doing so, however, I've this $125 travel voucher from The Airline because of the hideous experience I had at Christmas. Let me see what I can get for airfare and I'll let you know."
With that fateful phone conversation, whatever dynamic forces exist in the Universe were set in motion to prepare and deliver this weekend for me or as my biographers will likely call this in later years, 'The February Visit to Coeur d'Alene Horror'.
Now, when I came home for Christmas, I hadn't much time to spend with most of my friends. I saw Brent and Sina frequently as both came to dinner with my family on Christmas Eve and Sina stayed with us for the weekend. However, mixing with Dougie, Patrick, and Jhanie didn't happen because of the whirlwind of activities, cookery, and suchlike that takes place at the Hardison household during the Yuletide.
As a result, I looked upon this visit to Coeur d'Alene as a great way to kill two birds with the proverbial stone - visit the 'rents for Mom's birthday and spend time with my friends (most of whom I hadn't seen in one spot all together since before I moved to Seattle).
After speaking with my sister, I opened an Internet Exploiter and navigated the perilous waters of the Internet to The Airline's homepage. After wading through the overpriced dilettante fares, I finally came across one that met my needs and was also only one hundred and twenty-eight dollars. Bingo! I could afford three dollars to fly home. "How frabjous is this," I asked myself.
O foolish mortal...
With a merry song on my lips and a tra la la, I tried to use my travel voucher thingamajig to pay for the tickets. With increasing frustration after several abortive attempts to do so, I dialed the customer service number for The Airline and spoke to a Perky Pet who advised me that (alas!) I couldn't pay for my fare online with the travel voucher but would have to go down to SeaTac to do so.
"Ugh," I thought, "how irritating is this? I hate going to SeaTac."
However, stifling my irritation for the nonce, I sweet-talked my roommate to drive me down to SeaTac so that I could purchase my tickets the next day. Carefully making certain to reserve the airfare I'd found, I put my travel voucher away and went on with my day and did other things and didn't think any more of the situation.
The next day, after slogging through a wearying day of work, I got home, fiddled around waiting for traffic to settle down and finally we departed for SeaTac.
While en route to the aerodrome, my roommate and I discussed the fare and the plan.
The Plan consisted of him dropping me at the concourse and driving round for a bit since it couldn't conceivably take that long to run in, fling the voucher at them, grab my receipt and go. Right?
Ha, bloody, ha.
An hour and a half later, I was still watching the village idiot poke about the keyboard with maddening slowness. After much head scratch, humming, hawing, and general horsing around, I was told that the travel voucher that I had covered the base fare only and that I'd have to pay the taxes myself and that the leftover amount (twenty five dollars) from my travel certificate would be given to me in the form of another certificate.
To be continued...
"Hello, Michelle."
"Hello, Brian, are you planning on coming home for Mother's Birthday?"
"Well, I hadn't really planned on doing so, however, I've this $125 travel voucher from The Airline because of the hideous experience I had at Christmas. Let me see what I can get for airfare and I'll let you know."
With that fateful phone conversation, whatever dynamic forces exist in the Universe were set in motion to prepare and deliver this weekend for me or as my biographers will likely call this in later years, 'The February Visit to Coeur d'Alene Horror'.
Now, when I came home for Christmas, I hadn't much time to spend with most of my friends. I saw Brent and Sina frequently as both came to dinner with my family on Christmas Eve and Sina stayed with us for the weekend. However, mixing with Dougie, Patrick, and Jhanie didn't happen because of the whirlwind of activities, cookery, and suchlike that takes place at the Hardison household during the Yuletide.
As a result, I looked upon this visit to Coeur d'Alene as a great way to kill two birds with the proverbial stone - visit the 'rents for Mom's birthday and spend time with my friends (most of whom I hadn't seen in one spot all together since before I moved to Seattle).
After speaking with my sister, I opened an Internet Exploiter and navigated the perilous waters of the Internet to The Airline's homepage. After wading through the overpriced dilettante fares, I finally came across one that met my needs and was also only one hundred and twenty-eight dollars. Bingo! I could afford three dollars to fly home. "How frabjous is this," I asked myself.
O foolish mortal...
With a merry song on my lips and a tra la la, I tried to use my travel voucher thingamajig to pay for the tickets. With increasing frustration after several abortive attempts to do so, I dialed the customer service number for The Airline and spoke to a Perky Pet who advised me that (alas!) I couldn't pay for my fare online with the travel voucher but would have to go down to SeaTac to do so.
"Ugh," I thought, "how irritating is this? I hate going to SeaTac."
However, stifling my irritation for the nonce, I sweet-talked my roommate to drive me down to SeaTac so that I could purchase my tickets the next day. Carefully making certain to reserve the airfare I'd found, I put my travel voucher away and went on with my day and did other things and didn't think any more of the situation.
The next day, after slogging through a wearying day of work, I got home, fiddled around waiting for traffic to settle down and finally we departed for SeaTac.
While en route to the aerodrome, my roommate and I discussed the fare and the plan.
The Plan consisted of him dropping me at the concourse and driving round for a bit since it couldn't conceivably take that long to run in, fling the voucher at them, grab my receipt and go. Right?
Ha, bloody, ha.
An hour and a half later, I was still watching the village idiot poke about the keyboard with maddening slowness. After much head scratch, humming, hawing, and general horsing around, I was told that the travel voucher that I had covered the base fare only and that I'd have to pay the taxes myself and that the leftover amount (twenty five dollars) from my travel certificate would be given to me in the form of another certificate.
To be continued...
posted by The Wicked Brian of the West at 1:22 PM
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