Happiness is a warm gun...

Well reader(s?), I'm back from my trip to New York City, and I have some bad news. But it's also good news. I'm sick. That's right, I'm sick. Caught a cold from my loverly hosts in the city, complete with drainage, loss of voice, shakes, shimmies, shivers, schvitzes and coughing, oh, the coughing. But the good news is that this proves my theory! On travel day (Thursday), the wife and I choked down quite a helping of Beatles on our Beatlepod. But, during our NYC fun day fun time adventures on Friday and Saturday nary a Beatles tune was heard. And, BAM, on Saturday we get sick. So, there you have it. More irrefutable logic that proves that listening to the Beatles keeps you well...and that going cold turkey will get you sick as a dog.

So keep listening and get your Vitamin B!

Now, on to the song of the day. Let me be clear that this isn't a threat or anything of the sort, but just so happened to be the song running through my head during the 36-hour period of my vacation to New York city while our luggage vacationed in Cleveland, back in Dallas and somewhere lost in transit in Manhattan: to you, American Airlines and the oh-so-ironically-named Perfect Delivery Company, I dedicate this song:




This little tune kept me secretly stroking my warm gun while spending precious hours on the phone with the nice but hapless baggage services people at American Airlines.

Let's start from the beginning.

We were on a plane from DFW to Cleveland. One hour layover, then fly to JFK. After an hour on the runway in Dallas, we knew we were missing the flight to JFK. I went to investigate. They confirmed that, yes, I missed the only flight from Cleveland to JFK that day. Though I could take a 8:30 flight to La Guardia OR a direct flight from DFW to JFK that got us there only 1 hour after our scheduled arrival.

That sounded great! (Except for the part that they had to keep our CARRY ON luggage on the plane, because they took it from us to stow below due to the plane's small size.)

So, basically, despite filing a perfect description of our suitcases (brown with baby blue polka dots and a bow (the wife's) and mine (red with a yellow pompom), the hapless AA employee #1 entered this into the system: "brown suitcase with a ball." Thus began the multi-day process of calling AA and explaining the situation all over again (because the AA system apparently doesn't allow people to share knowledge) and being told that either a) they were in transit b) they were in Cleveland c) they were back in Dallas d) they didn't know where they were and, my favorite, e) the system said I'd already picked the bags up.

Mother Superior jump the gun

Then began the part where American Airlines refused to grant us reimbursement to buy toothbrushes, clothes or tampons (which I made them well aware of). American Airlines only offers reimbursement if they haven't located the luggage after 24 hours! So since, according to most explanations for our luggage's whereabouts, American "knew" where our luggage was, we were on our own.

Mother Superior jump the gun

Then came the call that "Perfect Delivery" had the red bag and was delivering it betweek 9 and midnight. Great. Then another call. They had the second bag and were delivering it between midnight and 1. Great. So we roll up to the delivery point (a friend's office with 24-hour doorman) at midnight, and they haven't received any bag at all. Over the next 40 minutes, three cell phones sit on hold with "Perfect Delivery"...no answer..but a sensual pre-recorded voice rubbing it in my face that "it's never a convenient time to have a bag misplaced." I know! "That's why I'm trying to get ahold of you!!!!"

Mother Superior jump the gun

I ask to speak with the AA manager on duty. I tell her the whole situation and, by this point, I'm a little frustrated. I tell her this. Tell her I've spoken with 15 different people to whom I had to explain the situation from scratch. I tell her I just want to know where my bags are, and no one can tell me. I tell her that I want to know I'm still valued as an American Airlines customer in some way shape or form.

She tells me that she's made a note in my file that I will NOT receive reimbursements for anything.

I ask her to note the following in my file as well: I am unhappy, upset, I haven't had my luggage for over 36 hours, there's no end in sight, I hope she flies Delta (to which she responds, "I did and they lost my bags!") and I'm going to have to go steal some more napkins from Starbucks to double as sanitary woman pads.

She cares not, and says "okay, sir."

Mother Superior jump the gun

The bags arrive at 5 am with a tattered form letter from the head of AA at JFK. "Sorry...blah blah blah...we strive for our customer service to lessen the impact of baggage loss when it occurs...blah blah blah...we're sorry...fly with us again!"

Happiness is a warm gun.

Yes it is.

Oh yeah, I hate guns, by the way. And I think the second amendment is stupid, antiquated and did I mention stupid? And I don' think that song is actually about guns at all. But, it sure was comforting to sing that song to myself while getting rAAped in New York.

But, despite all that, we had a blast in New York! More on this tomorrow!