vison yells at herself again

[vison]

I am pretty beat today, what with one thing and another. I got my computer upstairs and set up, etc., but all the stuff out of the drawers and the filing boxes is now sitting higgley-piggley around me.

But the most exciting and exhausting part. Jeez. Mr. vison went to Toronto on Tuesday morning and he was due home yesterday afternoon at 3:05. I got to the airport at about 3:10 and waited and waited and waited and people came out and no Mr. vison. I was really worried, and I guess I lost my mind a little bit because I didn't do anything very sensible.

I took the invoice and itinerary into the airport and went up to the WestJet counter and said, "I was expecting to meet my husband on this flight and he didn't arrive, can you tell me if he missed the plane, or what?"

She looks at the papers and types some stuff onto her computer and evidently sees SOMETHING and then:
"We can't give you that information, ma'am," says the polite little girl behind the counter. "It's against the law for us to tell you."
I was absolutely gobsmacked. I insisted she could tell me, I showed her my ID, etc., and she said, "I'll let you talk to my supervisor."

So this woman comes out and she's got that "social worker" look about her, you know, professionally trained to deal with loony people? She put my back up INSTANTLY. She says, "We can't give you that information. Privacy laws."

I said, "He's my husband and he's not in good health and I'm worried sick, I haven't heard from him, this isn't like him. I'm afraid something's happened, so just tell me!"

She says, "How do we know you're not a stalker?"

I have to be honest here. The word "stalker" made me see red and I allowed myself to cuss. "J**** C*****," I said, not very softly, "this is my husband and I'm terribly worried, and I don't need this crap from you."

So then she says, "Well, maybe you should call the police," and that's when I really got upset.

You see, the word "police" made me connect some dots that I shouldn't have connected, I thought, "Oh, my god, something HAS happened and the police are trying to get in touch with me and what the hell am I going to do?" But as soon as those thoughts went through my head, I discarded them. I had been home all day and if the police had been trying to get me they could have.
But I guess a little of the loonieness remained because I wasn't thinking straight.

She says, "Look at me. I suggest you return here for the 6:50 flight." I realize NOW she was trying to hint to me that he was on that flight, but at the time I thought she was just stupidly telling me to come back at 6:50 and hope for the best. Like I said, I wasn't thinking straight.

She said, "Who booked the flight?" and I said "It's on the invoice, it was booked through Marlin travel," and she sorta suggested I call Marlin travel and maybe they would break the law and tell me something.

So I did. And yes, the travel agent we always deal with phoned me back and said Mr. vison WAS on the 6:50 flight.

Much relieved, but now angry at Mr. vison :rage: :rage: :rage: :rage: for not having phoned to tell me any of this, I returned home to wait.

So at 6:50 I returned to the airport and met Mr. vison and the instant he was in the car I let loose and started yelling and he yelled back and said he'd tried all day to phone but the line was busy or he couldn't get the payphone to accept his card and I was about to make him get out and walk and then I said, "Holy cats, let's start this over" and I pulled over and hugged him and we managed to get over being mad.

Why he couldn't get through on the phone I do not know. The phone was working fine and no one was tying it up. Bad luck, I guess. Mr. vison is impatient with stuff like that, and that's just the way he is.

It turns out that his flight from Toronto to Calgary was delayed by 2 hours, so he missed his connection and had to wait at Calgary for 3 hours for the one he eventually got on.

Now, obviously I should have checked online before going to the airport in the first place. Of course I should and I have no idea why I didn't. I usually do. Always. I would have spared myself a great deal of misery, you cannot imagine the state I was in, I thought my poor husband was lying dead somewhere, like in a washroom or a parking lot, you know the kind of stuff that goes through your mind when you panic?

But why in hell didn't that stupid woman at the airport just say, "Flight #XXX was delayed for 2 hours in Toronto" and that would have instantly made my brain start working again. She COULD have told me that. Why didn't she? This boggles my mind. It REALLY boggles my mind. And I don't know why the travel agent didn't mention it either. She probably thought I already knew.

But mostly I don't know why I didn't check for myself. I feel a little bit badly about yelling at the woman at the airport, but honestly if there was a bad way to deal with me, she certainly did that bad way. She was condescending and snotty and I came *this close* to punching her. I'm not kidding. I was absolutely shaking with rage.

A stalker? Yeah, a fat grey-haired woman is at the airport stalking someone? I know I'm not being rational, I know there are rules and I know she has to obey the rules, but why the in the name of all that's holy she didn't just say something about the flight delay, I will NEVER figure out.

And of course, it's mostly my own fault and that's what stings.

[What Exit?]

The first person at the airport could clearly have been more helpful. I doubt there is a regulation about letting you know about a flight being delayed. It sounds like a really horrible day all in all.

[Sarahfeena]

That is crazy, and if I had been you I would have reacted the same way, I think. Why couldn't she just tell you the plane was delayed?

[Myrnalene]

I'm so sorry you had such a crappy day, vison. That must have been terrifying. But please don't beat yourself up for it, just consider that you will know better what to do next time.

[hatesfreedom]

The first person at the airport could clearly have been more helpful. I doubt there is a regulation about letting you know about a flight being delayed. It sounds like a really horrible day all in all.

Oh come off it folksy people. If I presented this case as, "my xwife found out when i was arriving at the airport" you'd all be screaming bloody murder about the sheer violation of it all.

[Myrnalene]

Oh come off it folksy people. If I presented this case as, "my xwife found out when i was arriving at the airport" you'd all be screaming bloody murder about the sheer violation of it all.

I don't know that saying that a flight had been canceled / delayed would be some big violation of privilege? It's public information. The lady did not have to confirm / deny whether vison's husband had been on any flight.

[hatesfreedom]

I don't know that saying that a flight had been canceled / delayed would be some big violation of privilege? It's public information. The lady did not have to confirm / deny whether vison's husband had been on any flight.

It is clear to me now that all that was missing was the subtlety of our dear English. You are correct Myrna

[vison]

The travel agent is filing a complaint with the airline, she says this is but one of a long list of incidents. Of course the woman could have said the plane in Toronto was delayed, without telling me anything else. It would have brought me to my senses, which were sadly disordered at the time.

I do understand that no one was supposed to tell me where my husband was - but I can tell you that we are both going to get notarized authorizations for circumstances such as this.

[Jaglavak]

You got lucky sweetie. I've seen people dragged away by the cops for less than that. Yes, that is fuckin ridiculous; funny you should mention it.

[Hatshepsut]

I'm so sorry for your dreadful experience, vison. As a frequent traveler, I'm well aware of the rules about not revealing the travel of others...I learned about them the hard way, 20 or so years ago.

Long, long ago (before cell-phones, email, and the other means of communication we take for granted now), I planned to meet my husband on Guam following several weeks apart. He spent those weeks on a remote island that barely had land lines, so there was no possibility of communicating in the days leading up to our planned meeting.

As planned, I arrived first at the Guam airport, awaited his flight and ... no husband!

I had pretty much the same conversation with airline representatives that you did. Like you, I was shocked and upset to find out they wouldn't tell me ANYTHING, but simply hinted that I might want to stick around for the next flight.

But the next possible flight was hours away (and I was exhausted from traveling halfway around the world), so I picked a hotel, begged the staff to give my husband a message (they wouldn't make any promises), and went off to said hotel and hoped for the best.

Sure enough, at about 2:00 am, my phone at the hotel rang. My husband had arrived on a later flight. He asked the airline staff about MY arrival and they did grudgingly tell him that I'd asked about him a few hours before. But they would not tell him where I was staying.

I was at the first hotel he tried calling, so then all was well. I don't even remember exactly what went wrong anymore and why we didn't hook up as planned.

The good part of this story is that the hotel I went to, that he thought to call first, was an, er ... "love hotel" with hourly rates, fake pink satin bedspreads, and mirrors on all the walls and ceilings. I can't honestly say we'd ever, um...had a nudge-nudge-wink-wink-good-time there, but we DID know about the hotel and its reputation.

The fact I chose that hotel, and it was the very first place my husband thought to call, suggests to me that we are soulmates who belong together.