Caterwauling

OMG.

I left Mexico, oh, Sunday morning. I got to Miami on Monday afternoon.

Hence why my Facebook status has said, “I’m in Miami, bitch!” since about 12:30 p.m. Eastern. *bounce*

Grr.

So, apparently Continental and United have merged. My fellow stranded passengers and I declared that the name of the newly joined companies is, appropriately enough, Cuntinental.

You know, so they can lick you where you pee when they won’t let you on your connecting flight that you RAN LIKE THE WIND to catch.

All right, so leaving Los Cabos wasn’t a joy. We stood in one line for 90 minutes and another for 15 minutes. I didn’t get to do ANY shopping on my trip. Which pisses me off, as all I want to do is shop.

Well, since we got thrown out of Cabo Wabo — the other thing I wanted to do on the trip — after 30 minutes (and how DOES one get thrown out of a bar in goddamned MEXICO, you ask? Good question), well, this trip was full of enough FAIL for a year.

But wait … there’s more!

My travel karma must have gotten lost in the time zones, as Cabo is on Mountain Time but they turned back their clocks a week before the States. So, while she got me onto the plane in Mexico, she left me to ROT in fucking Houston for more than 12 hours.

*shoots self in head*

I’m sure it’s not entirely Continental’s fault. God knows that the rep I spoke to in person and the other one on the phone were QUICK to say that NOTHING was their fault.

Remember when the customer used to be right? That was before their share price was dependent upon recording flights leaving on time/early … at the expense of hundreds of passengers whom they got to their gates LATE.

Ahem.

So I was told we arrived at the gate at 6:05 p.m. last night in Houston. (Note — I got ticketed on George Bush Boulevard in Florida last month, which ended up in a suspended license. And then I get trapped at George Bush Intercontinental for half a day. I HATE THAT NAME. Love, Goddess.)

Well, I tweeted FROM THE PLANE at 6:07 to say we were stuck on the tarmac in what they call “bank.” (What us laypeople call “clusterfuck,” or, “traffic as usual on 95.”)

OK, so whenever we DID get to the gate, we were in the back of the plane. Then we had to go through U.S. Customs. THEN we had to pick up our checked luggage, go CHECK IT BACK IN, and then rip upstairs to go through security AGAIN.

Our beloved travel agency gave us an hour to do this.

Despite Customs being on one end of Houston and our gate being ON THE OTHER, the three of us traveling together ran our ASSES off to get to our gate before our 7:15 p.m. departure time.

I was in misery, I tell you. MISERY. I just spent a week eating Mexican food and consuming tequila by the truckload. My pudgy pork roast butt is a LOT of ass to haul!

Anyway, my more-athletic travel companion got to the gate at 7:09. I know this because of the CLOCK above the gate.

The other colleague got there at 7:10 and I made it at 7:12. Yes, it was a goddamned marathon.

Even though the gate was open … and even though a whole bunch of people were on the Cabo-to-Houston-to-Miami itinerary (as I know the people at the travel agency) … they told us we weren’t allowed on.

And then they shut the door at 7:13 p.m.

OMG, I was furious. I had to stop and catch my breath. Had to save it so I could yell at people later. 🙂

There were no other flights out that night. There was a flight to Fort Lauderdale at the same time, which my other colleagues made. I don’t know how, since one of them is 72 and I don’t know how the fuck he managed to make it.

Lord knows I tried to flag down one of the golf cart drivers, but naturally they didn’t stop. FUCK CONTINENTAL.

You would think they’d have carts at security for those of us about to miss a flight. You know, like in San Jose, where they asked those of us on the Houston flight to please let the Newark passengers ahead of us, as the plane left a half-hour before ours and it was BEING HELD FOR THEM.

*scream* Why is it so hard to get good service in the U.S.? I’m ready to expatriate to Baja California Sur. Mark my fucking words.

Anyway, they had two monkeys working at the Continental desk at Houston. And Sha-nay-nay was happily telling everyone that it was all Customs’ fault that we missed our planes, not theirs. And too fucking bad for all of us, but she had to jump on the next flight out.

So I called Continental customer service. And I got through before I even made it through the ever-growing line. They basically listened to me and said they could only put me on the 7:30 a.m. flight today. But that the gate monkey could check other airlines for us.

So of course, the gate monkey said there was nothing he could do. I said, “Well, your headquarters said to check competing airlines.” And he was all, oh yeah, sure I can look at our partner itineraries.

You know that I did not carry a firearm into any of these airports, because I would be in jail right now. People are lucky I’m a liberal Democrat!

The long and the short of it is that the “bank” (i.e., high traffic, meaning that there was a plane at our gate when we landed and then two planes sat between us and the gate anyway so we were fucked) of which our pilot spoke was suddenly, “We don’t know what you’re talking about” at the gate.

“Well, it says here that you were at your gate at 6:05, which is plenty of time to make it to your boarding time at 6:40.”

I’d say “die in a fire” to everyone at Continental, but I’ve said that to my landlady, and my building (and my FLOOR) caught fire while I was gone. So I’m gonna be careful about my curses from now on! 🙂

Long story just beginning, we took the 7:30. They said we could have a discounted hotel room. But at this point it was after 8 p.m. and I didn’t want to go through the hassle and expense of going to a hotel, showering and putting on the (now-sweaty) same clothes.

You know, since my luggage was IN MIAMI by the time we got this resolved.

CUNTINENTAL, ahoy!

But it gets better.

While arguing with the ticket monkey, my friend said he should write an article about it. And since I’m, oh, HIS PUBLISHER, heheheheheh. I announced to the monkey that we have access to a half-million names and a publish button. Where’s the Wi-Fi?

*muahahaaa*

So, we took a hiatus from our frustration and enjoyed an expensive French meal in the airport (viva Pappardeaux — SO GOOD), with lots of wine, Cajun food and desserts for everyone. Which I am going to bill to our travel agency for making this STUPID booking.

(Another colleague got stuck in Phoenix. You know, the one who LIVES in Miami. He was flying into Fort Lauderdale. While us Fort Lauderdale people were flying into MIAMI. I am also billing my fucking therapy to our travel agency!!!)

We took the fucking Miami itinerary to save $200 on our tickets. Which ended up losing us a whole day of productivity for three employees. So, we saved $600 and lost three salaries this Monday. Fucking brilliant.

Anywho, we had a “Breakfast Club” kind of night. We talked. We bonded. My writer wrote about how much Continental blows. (In a way that relates to our business, of course.) I approved it, we sent it to home base, and we settled in for a ridiculous night.

We basically rode the people-movers for a while. Backward. Our own personal gym!

The airport was COLD. And we were all in summer clothes. We all managed to curl up into a ball (on separate chairs, of course) and get an hour or two of sleep each.

I wandered the whole airport while the others slept. There were clusters of other stranded travelers, since there were no flights out of IAH after 7:30. It was depressing.

What I found funny was that our whole plane leaving Cabo was seated and boarded early. And they announced that we were leaving the gate early … BECAUSE everyone was on board. I do not know how Continental justifies closing the door to the 7:15 Miami flight at 7:13 when you just know that there were a ton of people still coming.

Fuck Continental!!!

I watched “My Sister’s Keeper” during my flight. And I cried at the end because it was sad. And I cried even harder when I saw the Biscayne Bay (which is BEAUTIFUL from above).

I met up with my colleagues outside the gate, put my arms around their shoulders and bounced with glee the whole way down to the Lost Luggage office. I told them that my travel karma was back and that our suitcases would be waiting for us.

They were!

I’ve been snoozing on the couch and emptying out my DVR for the last few hours. But yeah, I left my hotel in Cabo at 11:30 a.m. Mountain Time on Sunday, and got to my car at 12:30 p.m. Eastern on Monday.

AND I got thrown out of Cabo Wabo.

Here’s to hoping for an uneventful week … although I know better than to expect one.

And Cuntinental? Call me. Really. Or burn down. At least, IAH can burn down. That would be fine.

Mark my words, I will NEVER fly Continental, and I will NEVER set foot in Texas, for the rest of my life.

Fuck y’all!!!

This entry was posted on Monday, November 8th, 2010 at 8:47 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.