Pulled.
As I write this I’m supposed to be in Las Vegas. At this very moment, 12:25 in the afternoon, my plane was scheduled to land in McCarren Airport. But I’m at home. On my computer.
So my sister and I went to Burbank Airport together to fly Southwest to Vegas. I checked-in for my flight last night online, but my sister couldn’t with her style of ticket and had to check in at the airport. No problem. We did so. She had a seating group C ticket, mine was A, but they let us board together. Then, it all went to shit.
The Captain came on to inform us that due to heavy winds right after take-off, the weight of the plan was too high for safety reasons and they had to loose some weight. So, they first asked people to volunteer to come off the plane. They’d reimburse you for your flight cost, issue you a $200 voucher to fly Southwest at any time and put you on priority stand by for a later flight. No takers.
By the way, there are no openings on any of the later flights out of Burbank, LAX or Ontario.
Then they started calling names in the order you booked. They would take the seven last people to check-in.
When they got to the seventh person they said the following words: “Sharon Weedland.”
We looked around, hopefuly that there was a Sharon Weedland on the flight. No such luck. Just another of many manglings of our family name. My sister was crushed. There was only one thing to do. I volunteered to take her place and got off the plane. It’s her birthday and she’s got friends to hook up with on the other end. I had to do it.
I went to the desk, asked about where my position is on the stand-by list for later flights. I was #7 and there was no chance of me getting on the 12:25 flight to vegas (the one I originally booked!!!). My first chance was on the 2:05 flight and those chances were slim.
So, I’m driving to Vegas! Good thing I charged up my iPod last night. It’s not the worst thing in the world. The worst part about it will be driving back on Sunday. You have to leave before 11:00 on a Sunday back to Los Angeles or you’re screwed traffic wise.
Looks like I’ll get a chance to visit the world’s tallest thermometer outside Bun Boy in Baker, California.
I’m going to Bun Boy, bitch!
