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Friday, June 16, 2000

BBQ'd Entropy Cherubs

My bag never showed up. It has my pillow, my one and only very favorite My pillow. And most of my clothes. And my disk drive. And all the accessories to my digital camera. And my razor, and brush, and a dozen other random things one bothers to bring on a trip because one uses them all the time.

But, wait... I've been through this before... Oh yeah! Last time I flew United. They lost this same bag, left it in Maui somewhere instead of sending it to SFO with me. It took them a few days to get it to me; I had to buy new everything in the meantime. At one point I called them and asked them where my bag was, and they told me it had been dropped off already. I looked at my barren hotel room and corrected them. They insisted it had already been dropped off, and would not contemplate any other possibilities. [it's not my problem] It showed up that night around 11pm.

So, anyway, I called them earlier today. Spoke with their computer, who interpreted my last name as "Langal" and when I said no, that's not right, it put me on indefinite hold until I had to leave to get to the bank before it closed. (I had to go to the bank to re-deposit a check from my home owner's insurance which bounced. And on the way home, I felt a sshhunk! and heard a cachink, dingle dingle dingle... scrape.... It seems the suspension on my right front tire just disassembled itself, and things are hanging down now scraping the road. Did I mention there's algae growing on my driveway under a constant flood of water from a leak in the main water line to my house? Nice to know the entropy cherubs haven't lost their special enthusiasm for my life.)

Once I got back, I called their baggage line again, spoke my name very carefully this time, and it said "Sorry, we haven't located your bag yet. Try again later."

So I thought I'd call United's main number, get the number of the gate in Carlsbad in case it ended up there. Their main number -- the one you'd call to book reservations... the one listed in the phone book and on their web page... is busy. And I've been trying back every so often, and it's still busy.

So just now, I went back and double checked the number on their web page and noticed they have a different number for United Shuttle, which technically is the subdivision that services the Carlsbad leg. So I called them...

Busy signal.

How do I convince Megacorp to drop them as a carrier? Maybe if I just point out how much this is all costing them in my time.

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