When the elderly make their own reservations

I have a complaint. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. Apparently it didn’t surprise United Airlines. I made my flight arrangements for the holidays online. The prices were quite high, I thought. I also noticed an odd quirk at United.com. When I put a December departure date in, at least in the second half of the month, the month of the return section shifted ahead a month. Does no one travel within the same month?

I looked several times at the site and was discouraged each time regarding the prices until, at last, I knew I had to make a reservation and, by golly, there was a flight for a very reasonable price. My good fortune. I booked it, printed out the itinerary, checked the dates, felt superior.

I was leaving from Providence, RI for a change on December 22 at 6 am in the morning. This is my latest theory about flying. Go first. It won’t get really screwed up until later in the day. So I booked early to go to Raleigh and early coming back. I assumed that was why the flight was so inexpensive.

This was my first time traveling with a pacemaker. I had my driver’s license out, along with my card from Meditech, my shoes and jacket off, everything in three gray plastic tubs when I told the TSA guy I had a pacemaker and could not go through their machinery. He looked at me like I was demented and said in a loud voice that I should be in line seven. Where, I asked, was that. Line seven he said again. I asked if there was a sign. He sighed. Only complete morons fly from Providence, that’s what that sigh conveyed.

He led me to Line seven which was not identified in any way whatsoever that I could see. The female agent at line seven used the microphone to request a male agent for a pat down and I was instructed to enter the glass room and sit down. People stared as they passed by in the regular security lines. Finally, an old buck showed up in a uniform bejeweled with the same array of medals and ribbons that Francisco Franco wore.

He asked if I would prefer to hear what he was going to do or just have him do it. I said I thought he should just do it. I was actually there to catch a plane as opposed to hear a lecture on patting down old fellows with pacemakers. This was before Christmas. But he seemed to know where something might be hidden. Too bad he didn’t work in Lagos. Luckily, I did not giggle.

On the Saturday after Christmas, I went on daughter Jessica’s old computer and attempted to print out my boarding pass for Sunday December 27. No luck. I was confused. I tried again. I should be able to get a boarding pass within 24 hours of departure. Still no luck. I thought it might be her computer.

Then I looked closer. I couldn’t print a boarding pass because my departure wasn’t until JANUARY 27! No wonder the damned flight was so cheap. I called United. Now remember, we are two days after Christmas and we all know what had happened that day. I couldn’t get through in this lifetime.

I attempted to switch my ticket from January to December online. In fact, the computer said I could get a flight later in the day Sunday the 27 of December for an additional $150. I grabbed it. It was, after all, my mistake.

So I flew out of Raleigh at 2:30 pm. At security, I got in the old geezer-pacemaker line by looking at the folks in each line. I got to Dulles for my change to Providence and everything was complete chaos. Four hours later I finally got on a small plane and arrived at 8 pm.

All in all, it could have been worse given that it was Christmas and shit was happening. But two days later I filled out the survey provided by United online and told them us elderly had trouble with calendars that automatically moved ahead. So far the company President has not thought to call me and apologize!