Wanna Get Away?

 There are those who refer to the lottery as "the idiot tax." I may or may not have tossed this sobriquet around periodically in an attempt to feel superior. That is not how I am currently feeling. 

Instead, I am feeling like I just donated a substantial chunk of money to the ether. It would be easy enough to start with a diatribe against airlines and how they nickel and dime us all into submission, leaving us to stand like cattle in airports where we have to be hours earlier than our flights will last. For the convenience of air travel. 

I needed a low fare to get me to Denver so I could help drive back items from my mother's house with my younger brother. Like a dutiful son, he had already booked his flight and gotten quite a deal. In a flurry, I rushed to get in on this deal, and played the web site game to acquire the same great price he had. Once I had purchased the ticket, I was reminded that I would also need to pay an additional fee if I wanted to take anything resembling luggage on the flight with me. Not only was this not a free checked bag, this was a charge for having a carry-on item. Even this briefest of trips required a change of underwear, so I ponied up the extra cash to avoid the experience of spending three days in the same clothes as my little brother and I drove back from Colorado to the Bay Area. I did not choose to pay yet another fee for the privilege of picking my seat ahead of time. 

I could do that at check in. When that day finally arrived, I logged in to the airline's site, we'll call them Schmrontier, and attempted to assure myself of a spot on the flight. After three dull tries, I noticed that in my haste weeks earlier, I had purchased a ticket leaving at the correct time, but on the wrong day. In the intervening weeks, I made a point to remind myself to check in on time. When that time came, I was mortified to discover my mistake. I tried to cancel the reservation, and that ended up costing me not just the price of the ticket, but the extra fee I had paid for the carry on bag I would not be carrying on. I worked feverishly on the web page to try and get a seat on the correct flight, but kept being sent in a loop that left me without a ride on an airplane. I called the customer service line, that chirpily reminded me that I could save money by booking my travel through the Schmrontier web site. The web site that was spinning me in circles. When at last a human being came on the line, she let me know that I could save money by booking travel through the Schmrontier web site. When I explained that I was unable to make this happen, she asked when and where I wanted to fly. After being on hold for forty-five minutes, I was told that there were no seats left. 

Suddenly, I was without a way to connect with my brother, the one who had so readily been able to make his reservation on the correct day so many days before. Schromontier was not going to save me. I chose instead to swerve into the Schmouthwest lane and got a similar flight for a similar time. No longer flying with my brother, but at least we would land in approximately the same place around the same time. 

And all this cost me was about three times the original price of the ticket I was going to fly out on. The expense was on me because I couldn't read a calendar. Or make a faulty web page work. 

When I'm in Colorado, I think I'll buy a lottery ticket to see if I can recoup my losses.