Early Morning Flights

I just dropped my sister to the airport for her really stupid early flight. The plane flies at an ungodly hour at 7:30 AM. This meant leaving the house for the train station at 5:30 AM. It also meant crawling out of bed and pretending to be awake at 4:45 AM.

I went in my pajamas with no makeup on and no desire to keep my eyes awake.

I wish I could say the weather was beautiful, the ride serene, and we had a peaceful bonding moment. Sort of. I wasn't too awake to notice.

I did notice my beautiful park (the one in front of my house) when I came home. Everything was quiet but my mind kept turning to the Real Housewives episode I saw the night before. My mother is thoroughly embarressed that I still insist on following every episode. She hates that show and can;'t believe I've stooped so low. I can't believe it either! But let's face it....this show is so good. I just love watching women in designer clothes and manhatten apartments bickering over childish issues.

I'm hungry.

We had an insane incident at Ohare where both kiosks of US Airways and United Airways refused to acknowledge that my sister was on their flights (United transferreed her to US Airways - last minute change). Eventually - like after a situation of 10 minutes - we figured what the machine kept messing up and got her boarding passes printed.

Although, I'm really not so tech savvy, I really appreciate having machines print out boarding passes at Amtrak stations and airports. I used to think I would miss having customer service. I do miss it but since in the US, there is no concept of good customer service - people are always snarling and being bitchy non-stop - I don't miss the customer service counter at all. In fact, self-checkout lines, which used to be a pain to me, are now enjoyable. And this all comes back to the fact that who wants to ruin their day by facing a grumpy, snarling, rude cashier. If theyre not rude, they're weird/boorish/or just looking straight through you. I know smaller towns have this as a lesser problem.....and Chicago is not small....so hence, the rudeness.

Only a week ago when I went to pick up my mother and sister from the airport, a simple question to a staff on United Airways (about where people usually exit on that floor), turned into a painful encounter...one where the woman who answered grinded and gritted her teeth, like I had asked an unusually retarded question, for which the answer was plastered on signs everywhere. It wasn't. It was a simple question. And if you don't know, just say that, instead of gritting your teeth and plastering a smile which says that I will smack you because your question is so stupid. Her answer was "I don't know, we can't control where they exit from, but it should be around about here", but she gave such grief saying it. Eventually, because I have long days at work where I handle enough bullshit from some ridiculous colleagues and demanding bosses, I put my hands up and said "Ok, calm down." And I walked away. Rude? Probably. But I can't take these unpleasant people working at airports any longer.In similar fashion, there were some stuck boarding passes on my sister's kiosk today, and I asked "Excuse me" to the one staff person working on boarding passes in that aisle - just so I could hand the floating boarding passes lying around.....only of course to get "One minute Ma'am, I'm helping them at the moment" - but in a tone that could cut granite. I just put down the boarding passes on his table, called out what they were, and walked away. Too sleepy and too much in a hurry to tell him that he should calm down.