wednesday, 24 december 2003 (continued)
amanda intelligently went to sleep once we got back from the party, but my mom, my uncle bong, and i stayed up late shooting the shit as it’s not like all of us are around each other every day after all. all of us went to sleep before my cousins (kevin and megan) came back home as they stayed at the party much much longer than we did. we talked about random stuff… work, looking for a job, the value of college educations, consumerism, raising kids, yadda yadda yadda. my uncle became very found of the phrase �between jobs� as i had described him instead of calling him �unemployed�. we all went to bed around 0245 or so.
thursday, 25 december 2003
all of us managed to get up at around 0430 (excluding my cousins who obviously partied hard into the earning morning). the drive to the airport with my uncle and mom was uneventful; there was very little traffic until we approached the terminal. we made our farewells and proceeded inside.
the checkin process was deceptively easy. there were many people flying on christmas, and the united desks were very busy; o’hare is united’s hub. since we had more stuff to take back with us… additional party clothing and shoes, food gifts from my auntie cora, scrapbook from my mom, etc. … we decided to check our arcteryx backpacks. my backpack is an old friend which is my favored traveling luggage. the guy watching the self-checkin area warned us that the security guys at the gate would force us to open our gifts (we had a few small ones from our relatives), so while waiting in line we hurriedly opened them and tried to keep the tags in order so we would know whom to thank later.
we had arrived at the airport over an hour before the flight, so we got a bfast of muffins, coffee (amanda) and tea (me) at a starbucks in the gate area. the flight was rather perfect; as the pilot said when we pulled up the gate in cleveland: �an ontime departure, an ontime arrival… what more could you want from an airline?�
as it turned out, we could want a lot more, because they managed to lose our backpacks. after waiting forlornly at the baggage claim (which was amusing in itself as the baggage conveyor-thing was busted and kept starting and stopping), a united person took our information and tried to locate our stuff. a woman from brazil also lost her baggage, but the united agent found out that it got left behind on one of her connections and would arrive in cleveland on the next flight in four hours or so. unfortunately, she had no idea where our backpacks were, but assumed that it would also be on the next flight. regardless, they would deliver the stuff to us whenever it came in.
on the drive back, amanda ranted on about how lame united was and how we should never fly them again. we got to the airport in plenty of time, there were no connections, so it seemed like there wasn’t a whole lot that could go wrong. we surmised that the problem started when we checked our backpacks in. the agent called out �oversize� or something or other and did not place them on the conveyor belt. i presumed that, since they we backpacks, they might wrap them up; other airlines had done that before because of all the straps and buckles. perhaps some other person was responsible for dealing with it, and they just sat there until it was too late to make it on the plane. we grumbled about the pain it would be to replace everything as their value was surely above the airline’s liability limits. my backpack itself was an old friend, so there was plenty of sentimental value. a positive benefit was all the moaning and groaning and gnashing of teeth made the drive back to wooster go much quicker (about an hour in the snowy weather).
we stopped by amanda’s grandmother’s place to pick her up and the tv that was cooperatively purchased by many as a gift for amanda’s father. we ordered it online at bestbuy because they would deliver it and since there was one in wooster it would be easy to return if necessary.
too be continued…