Paging the missing passenger to her flight...

Well... That is what SHOULD have happened... But it didn't... The short story is that I have had a very adventurous day... More fun than a barrel of monkeys... We are skipping to the end... I am safe and sound and happily ensconsed with family in Colorado for the next day before starting the second road trip...

With that out of the way...

Paging the missing passenger to her flight... Paging her to her flight before it leaves without her... Ahead of the scheduled departure time...

Wait...

Does this not sound right to you? It doesn't to me either... That was what SHOULD have happened this morning... That was what COULD have happened... Perhaps even MIGHT have happened... But it is NOT what REALLY happened...

So...

Last night I arrived in San Diego... Late... Daddy picked me up (Yes, I still call him Daddy... No, he does not call me Princess, everyone else does... Well, not so much anymore, but we're not talking about that right now...)

So...

Last night Daddy picked me up from the airport late... I had a grand total of 6 hours before I had to be back at the airport... With tons to do... (Which I did, and even managed to get three hours of sleep in...) Then Daddy took me back to the airport at the unseemly early hour of 4:30... Yes, you read that right... 4:30...

I happily caught my flight to Las Vegas... (I say happily as I am one of those terrible morning people... I am fabulous for the first several hours that I get up, no matter how early... The trick is to look for a nice quiet place to take a nap a handful of hours later to re-energize... I am big on naps...)

So...

I happily caught my flight to Las Vegas and happily made it off the plane with my two carry on bags... (The sum of my luggage... I might have finally learned to pack light, thanks to the Boyfriend and the last road trip...) I happily got a little lost on the way to the next gate to cetch my connecting flight to Denver... The boarding pass got a tad smugged and it was difficult to tell which gate, but I thought I had found the right one...

But...

It was deserted... And the monitor said that the next flight was to San Antonio... Hmmm... So I did what any normal person would have done... I walked two gates over and got in line to speak to the agent there... When I got to the front, the agent told me that the flight was going to Pittsburg or some other far away place that was totally the wrong place that did not sound anything like Denver... That agent pointed me back to the gate assigned to San Antonio, which also does not sound like Denver, and said that was my gate.

But...

When I got back to that gate, which was all of about 50-70 feet away, it was still deserted...

But...

Over by the door at the gangway to the plane was an agent. So I went over the that agent and asked if that was the right gate for Denver. The agent said that it HAD been... That the flight had left twenty minutes earlier...

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?

It was just now the departure time scheduled for my flight... It was only just 9:10 am... If that was right they left early... The agent said that they had... And then seid that there was another flight to Denver at 11:30 am... Go to a gate not too far away and speak to the agent there... There were 3 seats left... No worries...

No worries... Riiight...

So...

I went over the gate that was not too far away and waited in line to speak to the agent there... The incredible flirty, smiling, helpful agent there... That is until the 3 guys in front of me went on their merry way leaving a nasty, short-tempered, scouling agent staring at me as if I had 2 heads... (Too bad one of those heads was not a flirty hot guy... Things might have turned out differently...)

But...

They didn't... Instead, they went this way...

I was told that ALL the flights were booked... All the flights until tomorrow where they might be able to put me as stand by on a flight to Chicago... And then try to get to Denver from there... But to fly stand by would cost just under $200.00 and to get from Chigago to Denver would tack on another $300.00-$500.00... Um... Let me think about this... NO! And when I asked why it was that I was not paged over the intercom, she had no answer. And when I asked why it was that the monitor had read San Antoinio, she had no answer... All she would say was to wait to see if a flight would open up... (As in wait there by the desk until Hell froze over and the little piggies sprouted wings so that I might try to grab hold and try to get myself to Denver that way...)

So...

I called my family to let them know what was going on and that I was stranded...

And then...

As soon as that agant went on her break, I tried again with her replacement... No luck...

The agent listened to me explain what had happened and took my boarding pass that the agent down at the San Antonio boarding gate had helpfully scralled "missed" upon... She took down my name and the conformation number for my ticket and said that all the flights were booked up. All the flights including the 11:30 flight that had 3 available seats on board. (Yes still 3 seats available, but not to me...) All the flights that the airline had until tomorrow, perhaps later... Standby... For TOMORROW or later...

Arrrghhh!!!

So I called my family (again)... Daddy checked the internet, which revealed that there were available seats on every single flight out to Denver... Hmmm... Mom put me in touch with a friend that used to work for the airlines that told me just what to say, and found a hotel for that dreaded just in case I really am stranded until whenever... My Sister-in-Law called one of the 800 numbers for the airline, and gave the other 800 number to call to see what the customer service side of the airline could do... Round and round we all went...

And then I asked for the manager...

Who took his sweet time getting to the gate where I was... And then proceeded to lecture me on how it was all my fault, and that 143 other people made it to the plane, and that the place actually left late, (WHAT?!?!?!?!?) and they had paged me several times, (REALLY?!?!?!? Yeah right...) and the airline had OVER-SOLD the flights... (Now we are getting down to the truth of the matter...) So there was just nothing available for me...

So...

Let us just say, that in the end, I was given a new ticket to a new flight that went to Denver after stopping in Salt Lake City. I did not have to de-board the plane and the flight was leaving at 1:30, only a couple hours more to wait... And instead of arriving in Denver at noon, I was landing at 5:30... But I was going to be able to make it to Denver after all...

The best part...

The new flight left from the same gate as the original flight that I had missed... And the manager stopped by to make sure that I knew where the gate was...

Of course I did...

It was the one with the monitor marked for departure to San Antonio... (Which as everyone knows, sounds EXACTLY like Denver...)