An Auspicious Beginning to the New School Year

SEK is departing from an undisclosed location in the Pacific Northwest. He saunters up to the Alaska Airlines counter.

SEK: Hi! I'm four-and-a-half hours early for my flight to Orange County.

TICKET AGENT: Can I see your ID? (SEK hands it to her.) Here you go sir, enjoy your time in Seattle.

SEK: Seattle?

TICKET AGENT: You better hurry up, sir. Your flight's already started boarding.

SEK: But I'm not going to Seattle. (Checks his boarding pass.) Why am I going to Seattle?

TICKET AGENT: Your flight was overbooked, sir.

SEK: So you're sending me to Seattle?

TICKET AGENT: Yes sir.

SEK: You realize that's in the opposite direction of Orange County, don't you?

TICKET AGENT: I'm sorry, sir, but you need to hurry or you'll miss your flight.

SEK stands there, dazed, in front of the Alaska Airlines counter. Right there, completely flabbergasted, in front of the Alaska Airlines counter.

SEK: Will I be able to find a flight to Orange County from Seattle?

TICKET AGENT: It will cost $100 to transfer the ticket, but you can take care of that when you get there.

SEK: You can't just send someone somewhere and then charge them a transfer fee. What kind of airline is Alaska Airlines anyway?

TICKET AGENT: Sir, if you miss your flight, you'll need to transfer two tickets.

SEK considers his options. The flight to Orange County from his undisclosed location is overbooked four-and-a-half hours before check-in. Seattle has a more robust airport ... so he rushes to and through security and boards a tin-can-of-death to Seattle, where he currently sits typing this on free Google wifi. Will he make it home? Only time will tell.

 

Comments

[SEK]

This is one of those only-happens-to-SEK posts written as it happens. This way, when my feet wash up on a desolate Vancouver shore, you can feel the warm glow that only insider knowledge can provide.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Haven't you ever wanted to go to Seattle? Come on. You know that you've wanted to go to Seattle.

I bet that you've always wanted to go to Chicago, too.

[Sean Lai]

You really should stop booking your flight plans through Kafka Travel Agency.

[SEK]

Sean: My confirmation came straight from the Circumlocution Office. I'm not sure what the problem is.

Rich: I've been to Chicago. Yes, I've been to Chicago. And I've always wanted to go to Seattle, but not like this, and to more than just SEATAC. I'm not sure why I expected more from Palin Air, but there you go.

[Kitty Nowell]

Well, Scott, you did get your summer vacation, short though it may have been. Next time maybe you can stay a little longer and enjoy the scenery.

[Andrew R.]

Hopefully you're back from a summer involving gobs and gobs of publication and other such career-advancing goodness.

Meanwhile, have you every thought of maybe pitching your life to a network as an off-beat sitcom?

[Sisyphus]

Hey, you went to shoot moose with a machine gun from a helicopter in PalinCountry and DIDN"T INVITE ME?????? I told you I wanted to go!

You could at least have stopped in to visit. *pout*

[P.T.Smith]

My version of this story involves me thinking, "I've four-and-a-half hours to argue my way onto my flight."

[Kejia32]

Not a bad time of year to visit Seattle, but why couldn't they have sent you to Paris?

[SEK]

Andrew: Honestly, I've just considered pitching my life. But everyone who loves me prefers your alternative.

Sisyphus: I apologize profusely, and will give you a call tomorrow after I'm done quelling the n00b fears.

P.T.: Two words: Homeland Security. Despite the fact that all they want to do is kill Muslims, they don't much appreciate people exploding all Jew on them.

Kejia: I want you to get on that. If you can find a way to get them to send me to Paris, I will buy you a new house.

[Ahistoricality]

With your luck, it'll be Paris, Texas. On the upside, I hear housing's cheap in Paris, Texas....

[The Necromancer]

You should never have sauntered up to the counter. If you strode up to the counter, things would have gone differently...Heck, you might have ended up in Cleveland.