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Vacation, Day 0: Taxi Driver (and more)
Aug. 27th, 2015 04:40 pmFriday, August 14. My flight to San Diego via Houston was scheduled to take off at 2:36 CDT, so I called the cab company at about noon, and about half an hour later I went out to wait. 1:00 rolled around and they still hadn't shown, so I ducked back into the house to write down a couple of my brother's phone numbers - I'm not going to relive last December's fiasco! When I went back out, the cabbie was waiting.
On the way to the airport, the cabbie asked me (as they usually do) where I was going. I told him: San Diego, and then Spokane for the SF convention. After a few minutes, he asked, "Ever read anything by a guy named Zelazny?" He was delighted when I admitted to it; he'd read the Chronicles of Amber (both series, I think), but had never heard of Lord of Light. We moved on to Stephen King; I said that the only King I'd read was the first few books of the Wizard and Glass series. He grinned hugely and asked my opinion of Blaine.... We continued to chat about SF until we got to the airport, in plenty of time for my flight.
I hurried to the nearest self-serve kiosk, ran my card and entered the other information. The kiosk informed me that they had no record of any reservation....
I repeated my previous actions. (Hey, maybe I hit the wrong key?) Nope. No reservation. I caught the eye of one of the counter attendants and described the situation. "I had a reservation on flight ###." "Oh, that was canceled!" She punched keys, and told me that she could get me to San Diego (via San Francisco) by 11 PM. Having no other option, I agreed to it, and accepted the boarding passes.
After passing through security, I began looking for anything phone-like with which I could call my brother. He'd arranged for a limo service to meet me at the airport and drive me to his place, but with my arrival down-shifted by almost four hours, some rearranging needed to be done.
Why didn't you call him on your cell phone?
:glare: Check your assumptions.
I finally found a telephone, which advertised that credit-card and collect calls were possible. I picked up, punched the number agreeing to a credit card charge, and entered the card number. The mechanical voice then asked me to turn the card over and give it the four numbers at the end of the signature strip.
The hell? Four numbers? The security code is three digits long. I tried several possible interpretations, which were met with incomprehension and a final "Please hang up." Which I did.
After stewing for a few minutes, I tried again, going for a collect call. Did you know you can't make a collect call to a cell phone? Fortunately, I'd also taken down his land-line number, and we finally connected.
The rest of the day was uneventful (although, I'll tell you, flying over the mid-continent mountains with the Sun on the horizon makes for a beautiful view - dull red on the western slopes, blue-black on the east). The limo driver and I chatted about music on the way to my brother's house (I said something about the irony of Steely Dan's "Hey Nineteen" coming out shortly before Aretha made her big comeback), and my brother was there to greet me at the end, despite the late hour. (Wotthehell, he's retired and it was a Friday night.)
And that was How I Went on My Vacation....
On the way to the airport, the cabbie asked me (as they usually do) where I was going. I told him: San Diego, and then Spokane for the SF convention. After a few minutes, he asked, "Ever read anything by a guy named Zelazny?" He was delighted when I admitted to it; he'd read the Chronicles of Amber (both series, I think), but had never heard of Lord of Light. We moved on to Stephen King; I said that the only King I'd read was the first few books of the Wizard and Glass series. He grinned hugely and asked my opinion of Blaine.... We continued to chat about SF until we got to the airport, in plenty of time for my flight.
I hurried to the nearest self-serve kiosk, ran my card and entered the other information. The kiosk informed me that they had no record of any reservation....
I repeated my previous actions. (Hey, maybe I hit the wrong key?) Nope. No reservation. I caught the eye of one of the counter attendants and described the situation. "I had a reservation on flight ###." "Oh, that was canceled!" She punched keys, and told me that she could get me to San Diego (via San Francisco) by 11 PM. Having no other option, I agreed to it, and accepted the boarding passes.
After passing through security, I began looking for anything phone-like with which I could call my brother. He'd arranged for a limo service to meet me at the airport and drive me to his place, but with my arrival down-shifted by almost four hours, some rearranging needed to be done.
Why didn't you call him on your cell phone?
:glare: Check your assumptions.
I finally found a telephone, which advertised that credit-card and collect calls were possible. I picked up, punched the number agreeing to a credit card charge, and entered the card number. The mechanical voice then asked me to turn the card over and give it the four numbers at the end of the signature strip.
The hell? Four numbers? The security code is three digits long. I tried several possible interpretations, which were met with incomprehension and a final "Please hang up." Which I did.
After stewing for a few minutes, I tried again, going for a collect call. Did you know you can't make a collect call to a cell phone? Fortunately, I'd also taken down his land-line number, and we finally connected.
The rest of the day was uneventful (although, I'll tell you, flying over the mid-continent mountains with the Sun on the horizon makes for a beautiful view - dull red on the western slopes, blue-black on the east). The limo driver and I chatted about music on the way to my brother's house (I said something about the irony of Steely Dan's "Hey Nineteen" coming out shortly before Aretha made her big comeback), and my brother was there to greet me at the end, despite the late hour. (Wotthehell, he's retired and it was a Friday night.)
And that was How I Went on My Vacation....
