As I was leaving DC recently, I was struck with great appreciation for meeting such an eclectic mix of people and was grateful to have many thoughtful, intelligent conversations with each of them. DC folks love their conversations, as well as their debates. After partaking in so many wonderful discussions over the past week or so, I decided to strike up the following chat with my mom while I was waiting at the airport to depart back to JAX. However, I was waiting for my friend to come pick me up because I volunteered to be bumped from an oversold flight, in exchange for travel voucher and rescheduled on a flight leaving the next morning:
Me: Okay so they are still oversold by 2 seats, but they haven’t received any volunteers yet to change flights. However, they are currently boarding all rows. Soooooo what’s gonna happen when 2 people don’t have anywhere to sit???
Mom: Well, if you are the last 2 on, you aren’t getting a seat!!! Stick around for that drama!!
Me: I will probably still be here because my friend had to run an errand, so I am working on my homework (which I do now every frickin’ day for 3 hours and I still don’t get why imaginary numbers are so interesting that we have to learn how to use them to solve equations. If they are imaginary, shouldn’t I just be able to make up the answer and pretend to get an A in the class?!)
Mom: Hahaha well, stay far enough away so you are out of the firing range in case suitcases are thrown!!!
Me: There is a dipwad sitting next to me, who is supposedly on the JAX flight, but he is just talking like a redneck on his phone. He said, “he will just wait to see what happens” to whomever he is speaking with.
Me: Dude – you are gonna get bumped and NOT get a voucher, because you are lazy!
Mom: He is definitely one of the two.
Me: They are boarding all rows, and he is not making any effort to get his fat ass up, so yes I think so.
At this point, he hung up and got onto yet another phone call. This time, he covered his mouth when he spoke, pretending to be secretive, yet he has the same affliction that many people do here down in the South. They just don’t seem to understand that covering your mouth does nothing to lower the volume of your voice. You have to actually lower the sound, otherwise we can all still hear you! Before things could get ugly, a couple volunteered to be bumped, yet his fat ass still didn’t move, even though the flight is supposedly leaving any minute now…..I keep waiting for them to call him over the intercom “paging Mr. Dip Shit, get on de plane, de plane”
Instead of checking in – he wandered off to go plug his phone in to recharge it, probably because he had been rambling for so long…….he did not make the flight and he didn’t seem to be remotely aware of that fact. Instead, he bullied another couple for their table closer to where he could also plug in his laptop.
A few minutes later I heard another flight paging passengers that they are also oversold – how does this happen? Are you not required to have basic math skills to work in reservations for airlines? Or do they not know how many seats are available in reality vs. perception? Maybe the reservation agents can tutor me on imaginary numbers…
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