Me and the Missus rolled our non-coffee filled bodies out of bed, dragged combs across our heads…and made the 30-minute trek from Goodyear, Arizona to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport at 6:00 AM.
Destination: Our ‘current’ home of Grapevine, Texas. We had dutifully helped complete a cross-country move for a close family member and were ‘somewhat’ happy to get back home (more on that soon).
After choking down some subpar airport coffee we boarded our American Airlines Boeing 787 flight and 2 hours later landed at DFW International Airport.
(NOTE: after many false starts over the years I was finally able to fly the ‘Dreamliner’…and was promptly disappointed…more on this in a future installment).
25 minutes pass by as we wait to get off the double-aisle plane: I am, of course, always amused as I watch people inadvertently drop baggage on their head trying to get off.
We finally make our way to the baggage claim area. 20 minutes later the ‘airport lady’ barks on the intercom (and I paraphrase of course): ‘Your bags aren’t in carousel 1…they are now going to come off in carousel 3. Go there right now or your bags will end up in Bangladesh’.
We lumber over to the other bag carousel with the other 150 lemmings (before you get all twitchy I include us in that list) and wait again.
At the new bag thingy I look over and there’s a 5’ish-year old with caked Spaghetti-O’s sauce on his cheeks leaning over and putting his hands in the carousel. I look next to him and there’s Mom…her nose stuffed in her phone having nary an acknowledgement of Junior’s antics in his new sandbox.
So from the title I’m sure you can guess what followed: Yep…in ‘J-Pasta’s quest to grab every bag on the conveyor he falls right in and starts his fun-filled journey on the next cargo flight to Dubai.
Worry not, Mom finally got done posting a boob-selfie on SnapCrackle and casually pulled out the kiddo…without even the slightest fear that Junior might be the next batch of canned pasta.
People Have Become Numb at the Airport…Can You Blame Them?
Just like Mom of the Year, everyone else wandering around in Terminal ‘they-don’t-care-about-us’ has given up hope that airlines (and most airports) are even going to fake that they are trying to do a good job and get flyers to their chosen destination.
Nope. Instead it’s the usual BS of ‘come on down to Scam International where we’ll cancel your flight at the very last minute because we can.’
Is is just me, or has customer service completely disappeared post ‘illness’?
Don’t answer that, because I will:
Yes, it has. I think the bulk of society is so utterly beaten down and deflated from the last 3-plus years that on one cares about much anymore. However, I am an optimist, and I think that this will change.
Know this though: It’s not going to be easy. And there are powers that be that want you to remain ‘down and out’.
Don’t let them put their thumb on you.
