Making the Best Day Ever Difficult...

08/13/2009

This morning, at 10:01, finds me secluded in room 431 of the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Des Moines.  I am at fault, as usual, and have no one to blame but me for my situation.  I made the flight arrangements and stranded myself here with nothing to do.  Had I investigated the agenda for the conference I attended, I would have found out it ended yesterday at four in the afternoon.

I am an Aquarius, and if you follow astrology you will immediately understand details mean little to me, and that gets me in more poo-poo than I want to acknowledge.  Today I am swimming in shit.

The flight I booked doesn’t leave until 4:05pm this evening.  It is now 10:08am.  I do have more than enough to keep me busy until flight time, but I was hoping to maybe go stand-by on an earlier flight.  Guess what?  Delta does not have a stand-by program.  One would think Delta would love to fill empty seats on any flight, but, alas, no.

I was told when I arrived in Des Moines (say it like it is spelled and it sounds cool), if I wanted to take an earlier flight I could call three hours prior to departure, and if a seat is available on an earlier Delta flight, it will allow me to have it for a $50.00 fee.  I am cool with that!  So, I went on-line this morning and saw a 9:57 flight out of Des Moines with a connection in Detroit.  At 7am I called Delta, and after an aggravating thirty minutes listening to some god-awful music got to speak to a real, live person who disappointed me.  It seems I can only do this on a Delta plane, and the connection is flown by a Delta “co-share” airline, in this case the one Delta is merging with, Northwest, so, bottom-line, Delta won’t let me do it.  Hmmm!  As I explained my position, all of the flights listed on their website indicate Delta flight numbers and I purchased a Delta ticket, I got the distinct idea the person I was speaking with didn’t care.  After hanging up I thought maybe that person didn’t really understand what I wanted to do, so I called back.  After another thirty minutes of god-awful music I got to talk with a nice lady, who became not so nice when she told me the same crap as the first guy did.  I am stuck here until 4pm.

To top off my morning, after two exasperating phone conversations with Delta, I visited the breakfast buffet here at the “Rene-nuisance” hotel and had dry scrambled eggs and greasy potatoes all for a mere $13.66.  It was a breakfast not fit for a canine, let alone a really nice guy like me.  Still, with all that has confronted me this morning I declare this to be the “Best Day Ever.”

And that is all I have to say about that…