There's nothing I like better than manifestations of the absurd and the bizarre in *real life*; they're the chuckles that give my face character instead of old-age wrinkles.... Growing up in the communist system provided me with an almost daily dose of those, but living in the US has kept me, mostly, on a "lean diet". OTOH, *when* things happen, their size is likely to be commensurate with the size of the country <g>. Today's morsel was just too delicious not to share...
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When someone has had extreme good luck, we say in Polish: "I feel like God has pooped in my pocket" (don't ask me why; it's a standard cliche). Little "bobkins" of that good luck have been piling up in my pocket for the past month...
Not in the same order, but:
I got accepted to the (lace) workshop in Ithaca (10-13 Oct); my first choice, Polychrome de Courcelles with Pompi Parry... Good, excellent, exhilaratingly exciting.
Have two roomies (both Arachneans, too, and I *know and like* them both) lined up to alleviate the pain of the hotel charges... Good, *very good*; the pocket-snake is writhing in ecstasy.
Have been offered a ride from Pittsburgh to Ithaca with one of them; that's only a short air-hop from Roanoke, and there's no plane-changing -- which I hate -- involved... Good; couldn't be better.
Er.... :)
Went to my "tried and trusty" travel agent to look into booking my flight to and from Pittsburgh today...
It takes about an hour and a half (a little less) to *fly* (we'll not go into the "arrive 2hrs early, etc" business <g>) the distance directly ... Even the travel agent was rendered speechless when the price for the "hop" (on a 12-seater plane) came up as (drum roll, please...): $530 (give or take a penny). She re-checked, but the screen's response proved to be, obstinately, the same. "I could fly to Europe for that", I said. "No kidding", she said; "I just booked someone to France for $590 this morning", she said.
She did some more keyboarding... "You can fly to Pittsburgh for $230, but you'd have to change planes in Detroit", she said. "I don't want to have to change planes". Um... Check-mate.
OK, let's re-think... The workshop is in Ithaca. If I have to change planes anyway... "How many plane changes/layovers if I fly to *Ithaca*?", I ask. "One", she says. That's much better than it had been in '96, and, as a result, it's only 5 hrs instead of 10; maybe I could stomach *that*, given some "financial incentive"... "How much?" I ask. "$300" she replies. Bad, but given the distance, perhaps not unreasonable..."Where do I change the planes?" I ask. She gives me a "speaking look"... "Pittsburgh", she says...
Before I "rest my case", I have a brilliant idea... "What if I *buy* the ticket to Ithaca, but ask them to take off my luggage in Pittsburgh, and just *don't use* the rest of the ticket? Nobody's the loser, financially..." "They'll cancel your return ticket, all of it, if you don't show up on the second 'leg' of your trip out", she says, without even cracking a smile, while I bang my head -- hard -- on her desk.
To summarise: *twice the distance*, with the attending bother (luggage transfer, spending hours at airports while being exposed to all sorts of new viruses etc) can be had at *half the price*...
"...and I think to myself -- what a mad, crazy, world..." Also, "they're coming to take me away, ha, ha"... In my 30 yrs in the US, I've heard *many* "dumb Polack" jokes, but *none* was *quite* as "inventive" in exploring absurdity... :)
I think I'll *drive* myself over to Pittsburgh... Since the longest I've ever -- so far -- driven by myself is 50 miles, and the longest I've driven with a passenger to guide me is 100+, the 300 (or so I'm told) to Pittsburgh is going to add a new dimension to the phrase "come hell or high water"... Sigh.. I suppose it's time I grew up anyway, and began to act like an American (neither sleet, nor snow, nor 500 miles of Interstate...) :) And I'l arrange it so that my DS (who has my password and can post to Arachne on "my ticket") will let y'all know on Oct 15 whether I'd ended up in a funeral parlour or just a loony bin...
----- Tamara P Duvall mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Lexington, Virginia, USA Formerly of Warsaw, Poland
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