After a very long trip, I was ready to start my trip. If you don’t know what that means then you can read my previous post. If you don’t care what that means, read on.
After having my crotch thoroughly groped, Xueer and I breezed through security with no bags checked. As soon as we got to the gate, though, our names were called on the speakers. It turns out that they’d overbooked the flight like a bunch of morons. Since we had no luggage and were thus the easiest people to take off the plane, they asked if we’d be willing to give up our seats in exchange for a generous offer. They’d change our flights and give us a hotel in the meantime with free food. In addition, they’d give each of us $600 Delta vouchers. We would miss our 15 hour layover in tokyo but arrive in Shanghai at the same time. $600 plane voucher in exchange for my half day in Tokyo? Book ‘em Danno.
After doing a happy dance, we headed to our oversized neighboring hotel rooms where we’d spend the next ten hours. For eight of those hours, I rolled around naked on the sheets that were tucked so tightly the way that only housekeeping knows how to tuck. Excellent tuck. Then for the next hour and a half I watched Wolf Blitzer while continuing to roll naked on the bed. The last half hour I spent putting tiny soaps into my backpack. Needless to say, I enjoyed my stay at the Holiday Inn.
The next morning I rushed back down south and met up my trusty host, Helen. She drove to meet me and drop off my precious camera that I’d left in the car, a point that I forgot to mention before because I’m a careless and lazy writer. Thank you, Helen! I rushed back to meet Xueer at the hotel before heading back to the pathetic complex that is LAX for the second time.
This time we boarded the plane and buckled up, ready to go. Then, another announcement on the plane speakers. Apparently the plane was too heavy and they needed more than a dozen people to volunteer to leave for another $600 voucher. It sounded tempting but I had a connecting flight that I didn’t want to miss, and I knew Xueer wanted to stay on the flight. Screw it, I got up and volunteered. There were only a couple others who volunteered, so they upped the anti to an $800 check and an upgrade to business class. Whee doggies! Xueer barely made it off the plane in time and we were on our way to another free flight.
The flight they rescheduled us for was even better than our original, arriving the morning of the 15th instead in the middle of the night on the 14th. It connected in atlanta and, unfortunately, the salesperson told us there was only one business class seat.
“I’ll take it,” I volunteered.
“What’s the difference?” Xueer asked.
“No big difference,” I told her.
But I wasn’t getting away that easy. The salesperson wouldn’t let me lie. So we decided to flip a coin. Let me tell you, this was the coin flip of the year. A lot on the line. We stood in the middle of the gate and a wide space cleared for us. All the airport employees stopped their work to fix their eyes on the coin.
“Heads,” she called.
“No interferences.”
I flipped. High, I flipped that shiny circular symbol of hope, chance, and a falling economy. It dropped to the ground. I bent over.
“TAIIIILLLLLSSSAAHHHHHHSUCKAAAAAAAAA!!!!!” I screamed with clenched fists in the air as I ran in circles around my defeated opponent. it was a sweet victory.
“Whatever,” she said.
It felt good.
So now there I was, with $1,400 in my pocket from Delta, a flight better than my original one, stays in awesome hotels, tons of free food and my first trip in anything but economy. I was on a travel high.
So we put off our flight a second time and were very happy with the decision. Our flight was leaving in 9 hours so I took that opportunity to cash in on another free hotel where I promptly commenced my regular hotel ritual.
Things couldn’t have gotten any better, and they didn’t. My luck was about to change.
More coming soon, unfortunately.
Location:Los Angeles, California
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« How to get to China | How the travel gods smit me »
ridiculous. just ridiculous. poor xueer; although this does give context to all your tweets about business class. but again, ridiculous. i’m jealous