A Place to Sit

London, Mon. Sept. 8, 2014.  I think.

     Spoiler alert; just arrived in London after traveling for 17 hours, and this is going to be something of a rant.

     Cheapskate.  Penny-pincher.  Tightwad.  Bring it on; I embrace those labels and wear them with pride.  Between Depression-era parents (my mother's chronic back issues may have stemmed from childhood rickets - 10 children and barely enough food) and 10 years a single mom, every month a battle to make ends meet, I've learned the value of a buck the hard way.  I consistently deny myself small pleasures, and I also hate to shop; on principle I also avoid buying almost anything new.  $5/day for coffee or lunch over the course of a school year, I'd tell my students, is $1K, a year's worth of college textbooks.  Bring a PB and J instead.

Canadian Rockies - from my window seat

     There are some things I am willing to spend vast amounts of money on, however;  airline tickets to see my children in far-flung places, for instance.  But what do you actually purchase when you shell out those those hard-won dollars on kayak.com?  1/400th of the fuselage of a 777?  No, you buy a SEAT, the opportunity to park your butt in an uncomfortable sliver of space for an unconscionable amount of time, daring to hope you won't starve until they get the next dose of food to your row in the nether regions of the flying sardine can.

     Now the airlines are charging for everything in ADDITION to the ticket price, and you have to pay for the privilege of getting a seat ahead of time, if you're not willing to take your chances with what's left 24 hours prior to your flight.  But true to character, I'm one of those people who sits at my computer, ready to push the "confirm" button exactly 24 hours and zero minutes before a flight in an effort to nab the closest window to the front, for no extra cost.

Bridget's books - arranged by color!

     But this time it didn't work, despite repeated attempts on both Air Canada and Lufthansa.  It wasn't clear whether the transatlantic flight was an Air Canada flight operated by Lufthansa, or vice versa, so  I called Air Canada, multiple times, only to get waiting periods from 39-44 minutes (I was game but my phone wasn't).  I then called Lufthansa, on Skype, at 11 p.m., because their phone number is in the UK.  I finally got through to Air Canada at 3 a.m.  Bottom line?  Neither airline could help me, except for "giving" me a seat on the puddle-jumper from Vancouver to Seattle in a month's time.  Woop-de-doo.

     I've conceived a great nostalgia for those cute little plane 
diagrams where you used to be able to choose your own seat, 
knowing when you shelled out money for a ticket it also included
somewhere to actually sit on the plane.  All told, I probably spent 8 hours trying to nab a window seat on this last flight.  Was it worth all that rigamarole?  Have YOU spent 10 hours in a middle seat on an overnight flight? - Tis a fate to be avoided at all costs.  But I still have to ask:  Why did I have to go through this hassle to secure my god-given right to a seat with my ticket price?  Bloody airlines; next they'll charge you for the privilege of going to the toilet! ?

Ah; finally a decent cup of tea!

    Dispirited and royally fed up, I got no help, and a middle seat on the long leg to London, from Air Canada at Seattle airport; this on top of the indignity of having to check my bag, which weighed more than 22 lbs. thanks to all the loot I packed for my daughter.  In Vancouver, I barely got the time of day from the gate agent.  As well as being a penny-pincher, however, I'm also stubborn, so I stood in line with the other pleading passengers; my last shot.  And wonder of wonders, the woman two ahead of me gave up her window seat in row 41 to sit next to the person she was traveling with, and the nice lady gave it to me.  Eureka!


     My advice?  Next time you try to sleep on a plane, there's nowhere to put your head, your legs or your elbows, and some idiot has opened their window shade to bright sunlight at 2 a.m. on your body clock, compose a rant.  Great cure for jet-lag.