My Fright Home...

Ok, so I drove with my brother to help him move into his new aparment in Illinois last Saturday and then on Sunday I was to fly (ok, I did end up flying) home on American Airlines.

I arrived at O'hare at 7:30 a.m. for my 8:50 a.m. flight and checked the departure board. One flight had been cancelled. Care to guess? I'll let you have three tries and the first 2 do not even count!!

Yep. I had in my hand my pre-printed, now useless, electronic boarding pass. This meant I now had to rub shoulders with the masses and wind my way slowly to the check-in counter. Thirty minutes later I was informed I was now booked on United Airlines 9:15 flight, but not really because what they were actually giving me was a coupon for the ticket for said flight. Now hustle back to terminal 1 to get in their Check-In line.

Aaaaand 20 minutes later I am being told that AA did not actually book me on the flight and I might not be leaving Chicago for a while. Seeing my 'Now-I-Know-Why-They-Blow-Up-Airports' look, the counter tech decided he might want to give it the 'Ole College Try' and see if he could effect a positive resolution.

Which he did! Thank you United!

So, as I wended my way through the security line (which was being outpaced by the proverbial snail) I decided to change my shoes for my flip-flops. I would like to say that I am almost 40 and this is the first year (at age 39) in which I have ever owned flip-flops. I have to admit I was missing out.

Then the 'Man' decided that he would split the security check line and sent my half to the far end of the terminal where they opened a new check point. Upon arriving at the front of the line (some 15 minutes before boarding was to commence for my flight) I had the following interaction with the security staff:

Security Flunky: ID and boarding pass.
(glancing from me to the documents and offering a brief frown)
Thank you. You have been selected for Special Inspection.

I realize that they do have to do this and had been through it once before on a flight to Swizterland, but I was in kind of a hurry and therefore was a bit slow on deciding how I should react. Should I:
a: jump up and down clapping and calling out 'Yea me!'
b: do the 'One-armed, athletic, fist pump' and calling out 'Boo-yah!'
c: shrug my shoulders and wait for further instructions.

I chose poorly. I shrugged my shoulders and stood there quietly.

SF: Did you hear me?
(now glaring at me)

Again there were myriads of choices available. I chose to be annoyingly polite.

me: (with my widest, brightest smile) Yes. I have been selected for Special Inspection.
SF: Follow me!
(now glaring and a bit red in the face)

Fortunately everyone else seemed to be a little harried and the full-body probe never occurred.

Here's how we were called for boarding:

Section 1 may now board. Section 2 may now board...Section 3...Section 4 may now board.

WTF??

Every airline I have ever flown called us by row numbers after boarding 1st and business class passengers! My boarding pass had nothing on it about sections and after staring around at the empty Waiting Area, I had to assume it was the only boarding pass devoid of a section number.

I really wanted to go up to the uniformed flunky and demand to be shown what section it was in which I had been seated, but then I might have been selected for Special Inspection!

Same 'Ole Saturday at the Playground

So Thursday evening I got fed up with our current lack of customer service with our cell service and around 4a.m. pulled up the company's most recent Annual Report from the internet. I then got the names for the CEO and all the listed directors and surfed the net again for an appropriate email format...Friday around 9:30a.m. the CEO emails me to inform me that he was sorry to hear about our sitch and he asked one of his team to contact me...then I hear nothing the rest of the day (we'll revisit this statement in a minute).

Later Friday I take the imps to dad's house (1hr drive). We went because wife.imp's car is slowly falling apart and the only mechanic we trust lives in the same town as my dad. Wife.Imp is supposed to meet us for a late dinner out with my mom and dad. Here is a sample of conversation as we drive around looking for a restaurant that was not SRO:

me: hello? hello? Can you hear me?
w.imp: Hel...I'm almost to...
me: Hello? what was that? Hello? hellohellohello?
w.imp: I can't her...hello? I'm at...
me: Hello? Hello? There you are. Listen we're going to Maple Road in Zanesville. There's a Chinese Rest...Hello? Hello? hellohellohello? Can you here me? Hello?

Needless to say, my cell phone was also on its last legs. Since the designated company rep had not yet contacted me. And would you not expect that if the CEO of a company tapped you on the shoulder and asked you to contact a customer that you might make an effort to make any contact (phone, fax, email) by end of business that same day?

So Saturday we got up and went to a competitor's store and ported our numbers to new phones/new service. (By the way, at around 9:40p.m. tonight, the person tasked by the CEO to contact me about my concerns sent me an email, asking me to call the company on Monday)

It was here that the imps decided that they needed more of our attention. When I say imps, I really mean girl.imp. She has been having trouble sleeping in since returning home from her trip and woke up around 5 a.m. This means that she is getting quite tired by mid-morning and that means she starts pushing all sorts of boundaries. Boundaries that I did not think I'd have to worry about until she was old enough to star on 'Girls Gone Wild'.

How bad can a 7-year-old girl get in public, one might ask? Can g.imp really make the GGW girls seem tame? I mean geez, Dennis, little girls often flip up their skirts and shirts in public. At their age, that behavior is not so bad. Hell, it's still cute. Annoying for the parents but still cute.

Ahhhh, but if it were only that simple. You see, g.imp understands that this behavior is not to be considered shocking--yet. So she found a way to 'up the ante'.

Right after we promised our next child to the new cellular service provider in compensation for to obscenely complicated and glizty cell phones, I put down the pen I had been using to sign imaginary child number 3 away with and and looked at g.imp.

Aaaaaand found she had pulled down the collar of her shirt and had successfully inserted her left nipple (no, she has not developed in this area just yet) into her mouth and was sucking on it.

Her comment as my jaw hit the edge of the table then the floor?
"hmmmm, it doesn't taste like anything"

My first thoughts Pre-Nipple tasting comment:
"What the F? Why the hell are you..."

My first thoughts Post-Nipple tasting comment:
"Well duh! It's not the taste that's important..."

I did manage not to verbalize anything, but 'Daddy of the Year' awards probably won't be hanging on my office walls anytime soon...

Yo! 'Yet to be named National Pizza Chain!!' Whatever happened to Customer Service 101??

Dear Sirs,
We are contacting you after more than 3 1/2 hours after ordering a pizza tonight. We are
taking into account today’s bad weather, however this can only account for so much of
the limited amount of satisfaction we derived from doing business with your company
today.

Issues:

1) The limited technology of your on-line website does not warn customers of any delays
to be expected when placing an order.

2) Upon calling the regional, Ohio location to verify the status of our order, we
were twice informed that our order should arrive in 15-20 minutes.

3) In discussing the issue with the manager, ......, (approx 1 1/2 hours after our order)
we were finally told that we could expect a continued wait of up to 1 1/2 hours, even
though our order was already with a delivery driver.

At this time, after expressing our current level of dissatisfaction, your manager offered to credit back to us cost of our order. However we will have to wait 10 days to verify if this can actually be accomplished with any level of competency.

4) After waiting beyond 3 1/2 hours after our online order was placed, we called back and
were told that our pizza had been delivered to another residence and that another could be
made and delivered in 20-30 minutes—UNLESS we wished to pick it up ourselves!!

I have a very big concern with the fact that not once did your management staff, at any
time, proactively try to contact us and resolve any issues concerning our order. Plus, in
an effort to make this problem go away with the least amount of effort on the part or your
employees/management staff, we were advised that it would be better if we would pick it
up and deliver it to ourselves.

OH, we just received the pizza, almost 4 hours to the minute from our original, online
order, and at best its temperature it could only be called lukewarm. We are now in the process
of heating our oven in order to reheat the delivered item in hopes that we might be able to
wring the smallest possible enjoyment out of shopping with your company.

Thank you for your time.