the getting home part

Last Tuesday the hub and I left to go to Oklahoma City to find a house, since we will soon be transferred there for the hub's job. Needless to say, I was in a horrible mood since the ultrasound was rescheduled for April 8th and I now had to wait another 9 days. But, the flights out to Oklahoma City were great, and the hotel was beautiful. Love our real estate agent Amy, who is so patient and lets me and the hub fly with our opinions. Come Wednesday, we had found the perfect house - 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, big fenced backyard, brick exterior, and brand-spanking new! Now, I'd like to be posting pictures of this house. But I can't. And that's where the story gets interesting. See, the camera is in my luggage, which is LOST.

Here's how that goes. Our flight back was Saturday morning at 11:05 a.m. We were flying from Oklahoma City, to Memphis, to Cincinnati, to Charleston. Come to find out the plane has mechanical issues and will be here by 12:30 p.m. But the hub and I do the mental math - our flight from Memphis to Cincinnati leaves at 1:35 p.m. so we will miss it. We, like everyone else, get into line. The frazzled lady from Northwest (who announces she doesn't have clearance to help us at all) tells us all to call the 1-800 number for NW to get new flights. The hub does, and luckily we are re-routed from Memphis to Atlanta to Charleston. We of course have now stepped out of line and figure out we have to get back in because our bags are routed the original way. We give up on the line, leave the secured area, and go to the Northwest ticket counter, where we proceed to teach this woman her job. Seriously, they can't get a laid-off MBA in here to clean this mess up? She is literally flipping through the manual with a lost expression - something I likened to flipping through the Yellow Pages when you forget what you were looking up in the first place. We explain that our bags need to be re-routed because once they get to Memphis, the original flight will have already left. She does not understand us in the least. She tells us [incorrectly] that because Charleston is the "final destination" the high-as-a-kite useless votech baggage handlers will somehow magically think to look up our itineraries and re-route the bags themselves. No dice, and we're not getting anywhere with her, so we go back through security (where I am forced to throw away the $3 water I just bought) and we make the NW agent deal with it.

Come 12:55 p.m., the hub and I are settled in on the flight to Memphis, ready to catch the flight to Atlanta, then on to Charleston. Yes, we would now be delayed 4 hours, but at least everything was fixed, right? WRONG! We go to the Atlanta terminal, where we are blown off by the Delta reps, who say it is a NW problem and they won't print our boarding passes. So, we go through the Memphis airport (which reeks of urine and everyone who is employed sits around watching the terminal tvs), and find the only NW reps in the airport. Now, looking back I think these ladies may have been sent down in our time of need. Because no one else cared. They check on the flight to Atlanta, and come to find out that the flight is full. Not only is it full, it was always full, meaning when customer service re-routed us 4 hours previously, they put us on a flight that had no seats available. We are screwed. They find us another flight, which we have to take because we're running out of options at this point. We spend the next 3 hours trying to get the boarding passes printed, which everyone claims isn't their job. I think at that point, after 9 hours of being in airports, I was the closest I'll ever be to a stroke.

See, after dealing with US Air (who the new flight to Charlotte is with) I can't find NW reps, and US Air claims we are missing a flight sheet he needs to complete the boarding passes. I call NW, and talk to someone in headquarters, who contacts NW in the Memphis airport. You know what she tells me? None of the NW reps will go into the terminal so I have to go out to the ticket area to get any help. And that I better hurry because they will all be leaving for the day. Re-read: NO ONE WILL HELP ME. After relaying this message to the hub, he is seriously pissed off and we run to the ticket area. Where we proceed to stand in line to get attitude from the NW rep, who gives us the paper we already have, then we track down the US Air guy who says nothing when we say he was wrong and he cost us 2 hours of running around the airport.

We get on the flight to Charlotte (not sitting next to each other even though we requested that from the moron US Air guy) and get to Charlotte. We find the gate for the 10:30 p.m. flight to Charleston. I have my feet propped up because they are so swollen by now they look like they might explode. The lady at the gate gets on the speaker at 10:25 p.m. to announce that there are mechanical problems with the plane and we will be delayed. They finally switch us to another gate and another plane and we finally made it back to Charleston at 12:30 a.m. Which is 7 hours after we were supposed to be there. We go to the 1 baggage claim, and no bags. We tell the US Air baggage lady, who listens to me losing it, exhausted and pissed off. And you know what she said? "I'm sorry." And as the hub pointed out, she was the only person who said so all day.

We got into the car and I lost it. Everything I had been holding in, which is usually reserved for the shower, came pouring out of me. We go back to OKC on April 28th to close on our new house. I told the hub I will only fly out of a real airport, and only direct flights. My feet are still swollen and I am still trying to get over yesterday.