Category Archives: badness

badness, life

The winter break debacle

My first real vacation in three years was ruined by Continental Airlines.

[I was so broken up about this whole fiasco, I couldn’t write about it until now]

I was going to surprise Boyfriend on the east coast with a visit.  He’s been asking me to visit his family and friends with him for the past three years.  I’ve always been working.  I finally had more than three days in a row off.  Time for a real vacation.

I email his friends a month beforehand, and ask them if it’s ok if I visit for a few days, knowing it will distill the time he spends with them.  They’re all very enthusiastic and sweet.  Come visit, they say.  We’ll surprise him, they say.  So I book my flight.  Leaving Monday, returning home Thursday morning.

Los Angeles to Houston, Houston to Baltimore.  Simple enough.  I sit in the Los Angeles airport and wait for the flight to board.  40 minutes later, it’s finally ready.  We land in Houston.  We sit on the tarmac for a half hour.  I race to my gate only to discover it’s been changed, and my connecting flight left before my previous flight started disembarking.  I never had a chance.

Time to sit in line at the Continental desk with all the other poor jerks who missed their flights.  We average ten feet per hour (no joke).  I finally get to the front and the man says, “Ok.  Tell me your story.”  I tell him.  He says the earliest he can get me there is Wednesday evening, leaving me 15 hours of visitation time before I would have to leave to come back to LA.  I say that is unacceptable.  What else do you have, I say.  The next available flight after that would arrive in Baltimore on Thursday at 10am, just in time to make me miss my home-bound flight by three hours.  I’m speechless.

“What do you want to do?” he says.  Tears start to spill out of my eyes as I quietly think about all the fun we would have had, how surprised he would have been, how I would have complained about the cold, and he would have laughed and breathed on my hands.  My lost vacation with the man I love plays out before me as the man at the counter shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot, waiting for me to give up.  “I want to go home,” I mumble, eyes to the ground.

He says the next flight for LA is at 9:15.  I look at my watch.  It’s 9:13.

“So I won’t be making that,” I say.

“Uh, no actually it’s delayed, so you can still make it if you hurry.”  Then he looks me square in the face, and says, “See?  Sometimes delays are good.”  I didn’t bother drying my face as I stare at him in utter disbelief.  He cough and prints out my new boarding pass.  He tells me to hurry as he hands it to me.  “No,” I say.

“Pardon?”

“I’m not sprinting to a gate to make the flight back home.  Call them and tell them I’m coming.  Go ahead, I’ll wait while you do it.”

He makes the call, I walk away.  I feel bad for the people on the flight who might be waiting for me, so I pick up the pace.  I get there, and a woman makes me wait at the counter.  She takes my boarding pass and makes a face.  “What is this?”  I don’t answer.  If she doesn’t know what a boarding pass looks like, I’d rather not get on the plane.

I’m allowed to board.  I find my seat, a window, and cram my bag under the chair.  I sit down, buckle my seat belt, and start to sob.  I can’t hold it in any more.  I don’t care that the woman next to me is uncomfortable.  We take off.  The city lights distract me for a full thirty seconds before I start crying again.  I’m so full of self-pity that I don’t notice how long we’ve been flying when the woman next to me taps my arm so the stewardess can give me a cup of water.  Apparently they all think I need it.  It’s kinda sweet.

We land.  The woman next to me pulls her bag up from the floor and opens it.  A live dog pops out.  I laugh.  I can’t help it.  It’s so absurd.

Sister picks me up at LAX.  She gives me a hard time about putting on my seat belt.  I try to make a joke.  She gives me more crap about my seat belt.  I thank her for her support, and stare out the window.

I get home and call Boyfriend.  Immediately start to cry.  Tell him the whole story.  He feels loved and sorry for me.  But he knows I tried, and he’s happy about that.

Overall, worth it.

The Aftermath: Continental Airlines customer service call

1240pm on a Tuesday
Call Continental.  Computer lady tells me to push buttons to talk to a real person.

1250
Lady at Continental says, “Oh, you need to call United.”
“But you guys are the same company.”
“…True, we’re merging, but United has your ticket package.”
“…But it was a Continental flight.  You don’t have my ticket information for a flight on your own airline?”
“No ma’am, I’m very sorry about that.  Let me transfer you to United.”

1255
“Transferred” to United.  On hold.

102
Computer man tells me to push buttons to answer questions.  On hold for a representative.  “Your wait time will be greater than 30 minutes.”

135
Quick chat with lady (Mavie).  She puts me on hold.

150
Lady comes back!  Asks me to repeat my confirmation number.  Suddenly back on hold!  Ninja!

203
Lady comes back again!  Says she can only refund the flights I didn’t take.
“But the first flight is the one that caused me to miss all the other flights.  Why would I pay for a flight that ruined my trip?”
“Well, that was the flight you used-”
“Right, but it’s not the flight I booked.  The flight I booked was scheduled to leave on time, and arrive on time.  The one I “used” didn’t do that.  All it did was ensure that I would miss my remaining flights, and miss my first vacation in three years.”
“…Yes, I understand ma’am, but we can only refund you for flights you didn’t use.”
She tells me to call the travel agency through which I booked the flights.

208
Call Expedia.  Computer man insists on asking more dumb questions.  I push buttons until I get a person.  Explain the situation.  Lady says she needs to call United to confirm my story.  On hold.

238
Lady finally comes back.  Her supervisor is “working on it.”  She asks if I used my flight back to LA.  I wonder how much sleep she got last night if she thinks I somehow used a flight from San Francisco booked for Thursday to get home from Houston on a Monday night.  I explain the situation.  She says she’s gonna put me back on hold, but I tell her another half-hour hold is out of the question, and ask for a time estimate.  She says she’ll be back with me in less than 5 mins.  I say ok.  She puts me back on hold.

240
She’s back!  My total refund will be $352.60 out of $515.30.  A difference of $162.70, in theory the cost of the first, delayed flight I took that screwed up everything else.  I ask if that includes tax.  “What’s the cost of each flight?” I ask.  She can’t tell me.  On hold!

250
She says everything is done.  My case number is S18682291.

UPDATE: Friday, April 8, 10:28am

One of Boyfriend’s buddies told me to file a complaint on the Department of Transportation website, so I did, including the part about how I missed my first vacation in three years, etc.  A full two months have passed and I finally got a response from them.  Here’s a snippet:

In regards to your refund request it appears that your travel agency submitted your refund request on your behalf. As the refund request was not done by either Continental Airlines or United Airlines this explains why you were only provided a partial refund as an agent with either airline would have had to go in manually to refund the portion that was previously used.

This is bullshit.  I was specifically told to go through the travel agency through whom I booked the flights.  And what does manually mean?  Are they gonna get their hands dirty getting me my refund?  Ridiculous.

I have requested a refund with United Airlines of the used portion.

This part confused me.  Who is this person?  I thought I was already reading an email from someone from an airline.  Turns out it’s just someone who feels sorry for me?

I offer my heartfelt apology for your vacation being ruined [thanks a BUNCH]. Your feedback is a valuable resource and I have included your additional comments to in a formal complaint that is shared with Senior Management.

What is senior management going to do once they read my complaint?  Take pity on me and give me vouchers for flights I can’t book?  Karate Job doesn’t offer vacation time, so I would have to get someone to cover every single class I’d be missing (and losing money by not teaching), thereby making a vacation totally impossible until this one winter break comes along and everything serendipitously lines up.  I had family in town from Australia this week.  They asked me what my next travel plans are.  I don’t have any.  At all.  So depressing.

Sincerely,
Kimberly Hamilton
Customer Care Manager
Continental Airlines
Case ID Number 4775848

Hey, it is a person from an airline!  And my refund was more than I was told it would be:

Cost of flights: $515.30

Refund offered: $352.60

Refund given: $422.60 (a $70 difference)

Leftover: $92.70

So I have another ninety bucks coming my way, potentially, and I might finally getting a full refund.  So overall… I’m still pissed at Continental and United.  Fuck those guys.  Seriously.

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badness, humor

I fall out of love with Rubio’s

This weekend was a shit show for me health-wise.  I’d been sick all week.  Saturday I covered for another sensei, then sped up town to see a therapist with Sister re: mom.  I stopped at the Rubio’s near my apartment (which I have on speed dial), picked up my usual order (shrimp burrito), and ate on my way to the appointment.  About twenty seconds after I get in my car to head home after the meeting, things started getting shifty toward my mid-section.  Apparently that shrimp burrito was disagreeing with my stomach, and my stomach was disagreeing right back.

without warning, the shrimp laid waste to my esophagal lining

Back home, Diminutive Roommate was busy cleaning up and making a mess.  She had 30 Rock on, and doted on me as my condition worsened.  After a couple episodes of Liz pretending she was pregnant and Kenneth talking about turtles, it was time.  Time to hurl.

Then it was time to feel sorry for myself, and self-medicate with some Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Musical episode!  Cooler than I expected!  New favorite character: Spike.  Stomach getting spewly again, take some Pepto Bismol.  Not as gross as I remember.  Awesome.  Text Karate Boss that I won’t be in tomorrow.  I feel a little better.

Too much stimulation.  Lie down.  Feel worse.  Hurl again, furiously.  Break into a sweat, peel off layers.  Go back to bed.  Sleep for two hours.  Wake up feeling shitty.  Where the fuck is Boyfriend.  Someone should be touching my head and cooing.

Diminutive Roommate pops her head in to let me know she and her date are going to a nearby Indian place I like.  I graciously decline: “Wow, that sounds just awful.  Thanks though, have fun.”

More Buffy.  Giles, don’t go!  Again!  Back to bed without sleep.  Boyfriend FINALLY shows up.  I fake sleep at first, then decide softly moaning is the best way to make him feel guilty for having dinner with an old friend he hasn’t seen in five years.  It totally works.  Lots of cooing and hair stroking ensue.  I feel a little better.

I fucking love pumpkins

He drives us to the Japanese market/food court nearby.  I get my favorite: breaded pumpkin, soy sauce on the side, just $2!  Delicious.  Boyfriend gets kontatsu (breaded pork) on rice with curry.  Smells gross.  I make a face.

In the parking lot, we sit in the car for a little while.  The sun feels so nice, I wish we could stay there, but I can tell Boyfriend is bored and I would get sunburned.  Boyfriend drives us home.  He takes the good way (no speed bumps).  Good job, Boyfriend.

Back to bed without changing clothes.  Boyfriend sets up laptop with headphones to catch up with me on Buffy.  Watches musical episode and loves it (of course), then episode where everyone forgets who they are.  Hilarious.  We laugh.  I sleep until 1am, and find Boyfriend still up.  Demand he goes to sleep.  Very grumpy.  Strip, get water, then back to sleep.  Forget to turn off alarm.

Wake up to alarm next morning (fuck).  Can’t get back to sleep.  Lie still, and try to ignore stomach.  Still being disagreeable, but no hurling so far.  Feeling optimistic about recovery and totally exhausted.  Think about little mice warriors for about an hour (re-reading Mouse Guard, so fucking cute).  Drink water, stay in bed all day.  Snap to attention at 3:02pm.  “Boyfriend!  Puppy Bowl!”  It’s Super Bowl Sunday, but who cares; the Puppy Bowl is on at 3 on Animal Planet.  We watch highlights online.  More adorable than predicted.  Kitten halftime show is a mess.  I feel a little better.

Four o’clock: Time to head over to friend’s house for birthday dinner.  Lie on couch and watch friend play Mass Effect 2.  Supercool female characters with awesome ninja abilities totally distracts me from squirly intestines.  Win!

Nine o’clock: Time for dinner.  Home made fried chicken, corn and carrots, garlic bread, macaroni and cheese.  I wash a bunch of dishes to feel useful.  Eat two pieces of chicken, half a corn on the cob, and some mac n’ cheese.  Astounded by my stomach’s agreement with said foods.

1045: Time to go home, but Boyfriend wants to stay and play Super Street Fighter IV.  Ballerina Friend volunteers!  We live close to each other anyway.  Boyfriend says he’ll be home soon.  I tell him to stop lying and have fun.

1120: Grumpy.  We head out and have a fun chat in the car.  Ballerina Friend is so nice.

Sleep.

3am: Boyfriend comes home.  I make fun of him as well as I can in my sickened, sleepy stupor.  Do a pretty good job.

721: Alarm goes off.  Hit snooze five or so times.  Get to work late.  No one seems to mind.  Food poisoning seems to get you out of any and all obligations.  Win!

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badness, humor, work

Stay away from my compy, blue hair

My boss has a company credit card that she uses very responsibly and sparsely.  In order to get approval for her purchases, she has to use this online system where she scans the receipts, attaches them to blahblahblah, it’s actually pretty streamline once you get it.

She asked me to help her do this recently, so I sat down in front of a program I had never once used or heard of, and figured it out.  We got it done, and we did it right.  Regardless, she wanted us to really master the program, so she and I went to a small seminar on how to use this program.  We found some seats, and a gray-haired woman stepped to the podium.  As the overhead projector flickered to life, I could feel my confidence in the seminar draining away.  What would this woman teach me that she hadn’t been taught by someone my age or younger?  I scanned the room for said youth and lo and behold, a young woman around my age sat two rows back from the front, anxiously watching the older woman (apparently her boss) fumble with switches and knobs to get the light at the podium to turn off.

I remember now what it’s like to sit through a boring lecture from an instructor so out of touch with her audience that she doesn’t understand the questions being asked.  Throughout the presentation, the young woman would quickly interject a clarification that cut straight to the point on a topic the lecturer couldn’t seem to stop hovering around and just land on.  The older woman spoke slowly (like we were children), and paused now and then to let some useless piece of information sink in, like, “You won’t be able to get to this page.  I have administration access, I can get here.  So can Lauren here.  So it’ll look different for you, because you don’t have the same level access as me… [long pause].”  She repeated herself several times (unnecessarily), she did not answer the questions I asked about site security, and had no examples set up to demonstrate how to actually  use the program we had attended the seminar to learn.

Toward the end of the presentation she remembered a few things she had forgotten to mention, and threw a bunch of unsequenced, seemingly important tidbits of info at us without visuals.  “Oh wait, I forgot.  You’re going to have to hit the Save button before you hit the Approve button or the pdf won’t stay attached.”  Three hands flew up.  What Save button?  “Oh, you can’t see it because I’ve already done this one.”  What Approve button?  “The one at the bottom of the page.”  A new hand goes up.  What page?  “The last one.  The one where we attached the pdf.”  Could you show us?  “[sigh] Uh, sure, lemme just… find… one…”

A few highlights:
“You’ll get an email with a link to the receipt.  [pause]  It’s like the little flag on your mailbox going up.”
“You see how these are shaped?  They look like folders, right?  Think of it like you have a bunch of folders on your desk.”
“When you scan your receipts, name them something that works for you so you remember what it is.”
“So that’s maybe new for those of you who have never scanned something before.”

Ok, so that last one might actually be legitimate, but I’ve been scanning shit since high school.  How have any of the people at this seminar not used a scanner before?

Young people: take charge.  You should be doing this kind of presentation, in half the time, with about a thousand percent more clarity for the audience.  I have nothing against old people, but my generation was raised with computers, so our brains are structured to understand how they function.  Anyone born before 1980 is just at a natural disadvantage.

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badness, life

The boycott begins

Ok seriously, wtf is wrong with people?  This whole anti-gay movement is just… bizarre.
I came across this article about how Chic-fil-A is ani-gay marriage, and I wonder when I’ll get used to this level of intolerance.  It just continues to blow my mind.  Will I ever not feel shock and revulsion?  I wonder when it will stop.  I had a chat about this issue with someone who voted yes on prop 8, and the conversation degenerated into something like this:
me: Everyone should be allowed to get married.
him: But marriage is between a man and a woman, everyone knows that.
me: Says who?
him: I’m not sure why I have to explain this part.  Where do people get married?  In a church.
me: Or in front of a judge.
him: Well, if they want to, but let’s be honest, people get married in a church.
me: If they’re Christian, yeah.
him: Right, and that’s what we’re talking about.
me: Says who?  You’re jumping to conclusions, not everyone in the world is Christian.
him: We’re talking about America.
me: Not everyone in America is Christian.
him: Most of them are, and that’s the point.  The majority rules, and the majority of people are straight men and women who would marry in a church.  So when they vote, that’s how they’ll vote, and that’s their right.
me: You’ve missed the point completely.  If they were voting for their own rights, that would make perfect sense, but they’re voting on the rights of others.  They’re restricting the rights of others for no reason.
him: Of course there’s a reason; marriage is between a man and a woman.
me: Ok, what’s the point of a law?  To protect people.
What if gays could marry?  Who would get hurt?  Who are we protecting by preventing gays from being allowed to get married?
him: Well the whole idea of marriage is between a man and a woman.
me: But that’s not the point of marriage, right?  The point is to spend the rest of your life with someone you love.
him: Then they can say, “I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”  What’s wrong with that?
me: Are you asking me why a legal marriage certificate is a necessary part of marriage?  It’s not.  It’s a benefit that you’re withholding from certain people because of their sexual orientation.  That’s illegal.
him: If it was illegal, it wouldn’t have been on the ballot.
me: Did you know that our president’s parents weren’t allowed to get married because one’s black and one’s white?
him: …No, actually, I didn’t.
me: I don’t see a difference here.
him: Well of course there’s a difference, you can tell just by looking at someone if they’re black or white.
me: So if all gays had a rainbow tattoo on their forehead, the two scenarios would no longer be different?  Just because you can tell them apart from straights?

Then the topic magically got changed.

I just don’t get it.

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badness, life

Losing my mind

I’m occasionally attacked by giant, imaginary bugs.

At first I thought it was a recurring nightmare.  Then I thought it was a night terror, but I have vivid memories of them every time.
I’m also usually awake.  Which makes them hallucinations.  Right?
I’ve experienced this about… no more than 8 times I guess.  The first time was more than a year ago, and I can’t remember when the last time was.

because neon chairs exist, and neon bugs don't

Here’s how it goes, every time: I’m lying in bed on my back.  I’ve been asleep at least a couple hours.  I look up at the ceiling, and there’s a huge, spindly bug with black and neon coloring (red, yellow, or green) descending slowly toward me.  It’s not more conscious than other bugs, but its intent is to land on me and do something (I’m not sure what, I just don’t want this thing landing on my fucking face, which is exactly where it’s always heading).
The first few times I saw one, I just hid under the blanket, terrified.  After a minute of cowering, I would venture a glance and it would be gone.  Or I would wake up Boyfriend and frantically ask if there was a bug.  Of course, there wasn’t.
My first encounter with these, I saw about three in a month, maybe more.  Those were the most terrifying.  All I could do was hide and pray each one would go away.
Later, as I got frustrated by my terror and hiding like a baby, I tried swatting at them.  This didn’t actually produce any change; they were always out of reach, even if I waited a second or two for them to get closer (which I only remember doing once, because who the fuck would  let this thing get any closer than it already was?).  It was getting closer, just never within reach somehow.  After the futile swatting, the hiding commences.
Naturally, all this thrashing would scare the shit out of Boyfriend who would wake up expecting me to be on fire.
That brings us to another part of this: Boyfriend.  He’s always there when this happens.  This has never happened without him sleeping next to me.  He knows now to immediately comfort me and tell me there are no bugs, they’re not real, it was just a dream.
I have no idea what causes these hallucinations.  I wasn’t taking any drugs, not even birth control at the time.  And why bugs?  I don’t have any phobias… at all.  I mean, no one likes bugs, but not everyone has hallucinations about them, so… wtf?
I’m gonna have to draw one at some point, if I can.  They don’t make any noise, so I don’t know how I know when one’s there, nor how they move so slowly through the air (no batting wings, no threads).  They just drift, and that’s part of what makes them so scary.

honestly, this picture is just about life size

Edit: Aaaaaand of course, what’s spinning its invisible threads just above the surface of my bathroom sink this morning?  A HUGE fucking daddy long legs.  Literally the largest I’ve ever seen.  Its legs hit the wall at least two inches apart.  That fucker was enormous.

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anime, badness, goodness

Slow death by filler episode

Here’s the problem with anime: filler. Filler episodes are what a good 80% of most anime TV series consist of. This is nowhere better demonstrated than in Dragonball Z, when whole episodes would be dedicated to someone try to fly to a location on the other side of a very small planet where a battle was going on. This “battle” consisted of only two people, who also spent a good two or three episodes “charging up,” or gathering energy for the (supposedly) ensuing battle.

The direct result of said filler episodes is that out of all the random Dragonball Z episodes I’ve managed to catch on Cartoon Network from my childhood up to now, I’ve never actually seen a battle. Such is the power of the filler.

Naruto Shippuden is also full of this crap. So when the last story arc ended, I was crushed. I would imagine I have some idea of what it must be like to watch my child excel in college, happily date, get straight A’s, and participate in multiple clubs and sports, only to return home after graduation, a single, ambitionless, unemployed, lumpy leftover person. That’s what I’m watching now. Leftovers of a superior series. Buh. Get it over with already. I wanna see Naruto and Hinata interact ONCE after everything went down (go Hinata! I QQd like a baby).

BUT NO, instead I’m stuck watching a talking ostrich reminisce to his kids about this one time Naruto was a jerk. No, wait, it’s not just any ostrich, that would be dumb. We’re dealing with a ninja ostrich. That’ll make it worth watching, right? [/scratches eyes out]

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badness, life

Dissolving the Hero Complex


So apparently I have panic attacks. I just found out about a month ago that when I go to bed and my heart starts to pound as I’m lying motionless in the dark, that’s a panic attack. And thank god, because I thought it was a symptom of some mysterious condition, or my heart was going to explode or something.

I was lying in bed tonight, and it happened; my heart started beating hard and slow. I was lying on my right side like I usually do, and I turned my head into the pillow until one half of my face was pressed into it. My head slid down the pillow until it touched the bed. My left eye batted open and shut, and suddenly I was 15 again. I can’t count the number of times I did that growing up, striking that position while my heart thundered in my chest and my left eye I stared at my mattress in the dark. How long has this been going on? Why would a 15-year-old have panic attacks? (hint: Read previous entries.)

Albeit I was thinking of something somewhat panic-inducing tonight as I laid there (in some police show I saw a while back, some officer saved some woman being attacked by some guy, blahblahblah, violence and hysteria). But it doesn’t take that kind of thought to make my heart go nuts.

So why does it happen?
I have a theory: I can’t do it all. I can’t save everyone, and I hate that.

I realized recently that my perfect world would be to have everyone just go limp to cut back on resistance while I try to move us all forward. I’m just realizing how crazy that sounds, but for a long time, that was the way I would have preferred things. Accepting the fact that I can’t control everyone, that there isn’t some magical combination of words and good looks that will place everyone I encounter firmly under my control is something I’m very slowly coming to terms with. I need to let people get away with the harmless little stuff people (and kids) do now and then. I think it’ll make me a better teacher, and an easier person to be around in the long run if I can keep making progress in this direction. I thought I was pretty laid back before, but I was content in my sense of control, however false.

So I’m learning to loosen-up. It’ll take a while, but I’m working on it. I’ve recognized the problem, and I feel good about that.

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badness, life

Spoiled Brats

When it comes to religious scandal, I like to think that the heart of the issue is usually communication (or its breakdown). If people had known straight away that priests were abusing kids, that shit would have been shut down immediately. Children don’t talk about what makes them uncomfortable, and parents didn’t know that they should be asking prying questions about their pastor’s sexual preferences. People wanted retribution, and the Church thought they heard “divine” retribution, and tried to deal with it internally. Again, the problem is communication.

And this crap isn’t localized to the Christian community. When the Islamic community freaks out because an image of Muhammad surfaces somewhere, the conversation seems to go like this:

Islam: “That’s not allowed in our religion!”
Cartoonist: “I’m not Islamic, so the law does not apply to me.”
Islam: “Take it down or we’ll kill you!”
Cartoonist: “Never! Freedom of expression! Freedom of speech!”
Publicist: “We apologize to all the crazy people who sent death threats. You win for now.”

What the hell is this? It’s a communication FAIL. It’s the crazy guy on the bus demanding that you not sit on his imaginary friend in the next seat. But not only that, it’s the sense of entitlement that makes my blood boil. The argument against displaying images of Muhammad all comes down to “Because I said so,” and when adults use that kind of “logic” with other adults, someone has to call foul.

Wake up, Comedy Central. At the end of the day, these terrorists are just a bunch of children throwing a world-class tantrum about something the majority of your viewership don’t believe exists. You can’t poke fun at every other group, then make an exception for Islam just because they’re the scariest. Don’t be afraid. Make us laugh.

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