Canada – Public Enemy #1?
Saturday afternoon I returned to Los Angeles from a fantastic two-day business trip in Montreal, Canada. It was a quick trip that involved little sleep, but very much worth it.
Right before noon on Saturday, Air Canada Flight #797 from Montreal landed at Los Angeles International Airport. I got off my plane and made my way to baggage claim eager to pick up my luggage, hop on the shuttle bus to the Parking Spot and make my way home as quickly as possible. I only got three hours sleep the night before, so a nap was high on my priority list.
I arrived at baggage claim and the carousel was already running. “Great,� I thought to myself. “This means they’ve already started to unload bags and I should be out of here quickly.� Twenty minutes go by and my bag is no where to be seen. Not only am I missing a bag, but so are about 15-20 other passengers. The begin asking each other, “What do we do now? Did you get any of your bags? Where do we go?�
This one French-Canadian lady and I kinda palled up and decided that we were going to get to the bottom of this. I led the way to the Air Canada baggage claim desk. There were two old ladies sitting there, who will from here on out be referred to as Old Grumpy Bitch #1 and Old Grumpy Bitch #2, both of whom clearly didn’t want to work. They didn’t acknowledge us as we walked in. It’s not as if they were hard at work on anything else because one was reading a magazine while the other had some romance novel shoved right in her face. So, I say, “It appears my bag and a whole bunch of other passengers bags didn’t show up.� OGB #1 says, looking up slowly from her Fabio covered Pulitzer prize winner, “Have you checked the oversized baggage carousel? Sometimes bags show up over there.� Fine, the French-Canadian lady and I made our way over to the oversized carousel, with every other passenger with missing bags in tow. The bags were no where to be found.
About 45 seconds after we left the Air Canada baggage claim desk area we re-entered the room and I said to OGB #1, “Well, our bags definitely haven’t showed up.�
“Have you checked the oversized baggage carousel? Sometimes bags show up over there.�
I wanted to say, “Bitch, exactly how much do you hate your job? You just told me to do that 45 seconds ago!� Instead I responded, “Uhhh, you just told us to do that a minute ago and we’re telling you our bags haven’t shown up and neither have the bags for a whole lot of other people.�
Suddenly the OGBs woke up from the reality nap and OGB #2 said to OGB #1, “I suppose I could check upstairs.� You do that! YOU DO THAT!
We soon discover that all the bags have been offloaded and the plane has pushed back from the gate. The bags never arrived. Suddenly the OGBs who clearly hated their jobs, and their lives, began to fill out forms as the room filled with 20 angry passengers. This one Asian woman was quite irate, concerned she was going to miss her pick-up at the airport, screaming about how she had a meeting at 8:00 AM Sunday morning, then was off to China on Tuesday and what was she expected to do. Now, the right way to respond in that sort of situation would be, “Ma’am, we’re so sorry for the delay and the problems this has caused you. Let’s fill out some forms and see what we can do to assist you tomorrow.� Naturally, that’s not how they responded and OGB #2 said, “Ma’am, it’s not as if I lost your bag. It’s not my fault.� At that moment OGB #2 earned the title of OGC and no, I’m not going to say what that stands for. If you can’t figure it out on your own, you’re just not a bitter enough person to understand..
As of Saturday afternoon I have made the decision to never fly Air Can-A-Duh again and the once fine nation of Canada has been placed at the very top of my Top 10 Most Hated Nations list. You should know, getting off that list isn’t easy.
UPDATE – There just happens to be a Hollywood ending to this story. At 6:00 PM Sunday afternoon, my lost luggage arrived at my home via courier. My favorite pairs of jeans, my phone charger and some dirty underwear found their way to the comfort of my home. Air Canada will no longer be referred to as Air Can-A-Duh and the nation of Canada has been removed from my Most Hated Nations list. The Chad is now at the top of my list, simply because any country with an article before its name is to be hated (except The Netherlands — because they have Amsterdam — and The United Kingdom — because I love the British).
