There once was a boy named Sakari who slowly but gradually grew up to be a young man named Sakari. As a boy Sakari was parts super organized drill sergeant and parts absent minded thinker at once. These traits forced him to line up pieces of toast in a straight line in order from biggest to smallest, on his parent's bed of all places. His traits forced Sakari to lose stuff and misplace stuff and forget stuff. Like keys to his home and when to come home or what time it was. Still when he grew up to be the young man named Sakari and the young man who people called Spede those traits were strongly in him although he had found ways to control them. Unfortunately sometimes one's inner child can't be repressed and it takes over.
So this story begins sometimes in the early stages of the year 2007. Don't ask Sakari what month exactly, he tends to to forget some stuff completely. Let's not bother him and jump forward to what he can remember, today. About for hours before he is to wake up and shower in time to leave to the airport on August 14th of that year, Sakari has finally gathered and packed all the stuff he needs for a trip to his mother's current residence in Appleton Wisconsin in the great big United States of America. Or so he thinks...
Four hours later Sakari wakes up, showers, finishes packing and gets a lift from his dad to the Airport. Sakari had talked to his mother in Wiscons twice in the past two days and they agreed that everything was in order for Sakari's trip to America. Or so they thought...
Sakari and his dad arrive at the airport approximately one and a half hours before Sakari first flight of three departs. He grabs his two half empty suitcases and his backpack and waves goodbye to dad, who goes cruising off to work. If you can call a 59 year-old man driving a Citroen C4 cruising. As the experienced, intelligent and savvy air traveller that he is Sakari quickly finds the right check-in counter at Helsinki-Vantaa airport's T2 terminal. He gives his home printed ticket to the female clerk at Lufthansa's business class counter. Sakari's ticket was bought from Lufthansa with Mom's frequent flyer miles. Skari gets his first warning sign when the lady at the counter informs him that Sakari's flight is with Blue 1, not Lufthansa. It's okay Sakari, that can happen to the best of us. The lady weighs Sakari's suitcases and prints out the stickers which will guide the luggage all the way to Appleton.
This seems like an opportune moment to change the subject or to take a look back at something happening earlier which would have significant relevance to the story being told. You know, to squeeze every little drop of suspense from this tale. Unfortunately, such story doesn't exist. Neither is what follows all that surprising.
The lady at the Lufthansa check-in counter informs Sakari that his ticket is the old fashioned kind of paper kind, not some fancy schmancy internet print out and that he should have his paper ticket with him. So apparently Sakari's memory had failed him after a long period of almost perfect performance. If you don't count in the fact that he left behind at his summer job a very important gift he had received only a few days earlier. But that's not even close to how well and fast Sakari can forget stuff. Especially if forgetting it can make him look less of a fool.
The Lufthansa woman informs Sakari that he'll have to try to get himself a new old fashioned crummy paper ticket that costs 25 euros from the Blue1/Star Alliance counter nearby. Finland where Helsinki-Vantaa is situated to be quite a large country for European standards with not too much population so things are smartly spread out. Fortunately that doesn't apply to the country's biggest international airport where all the counters are located very close to each other. In much less time than it took you to read the last drawn out sentence, Sakari moves with his luggage from the check-in counte accross a long line of Star Alliance tourist customers and to the proper ticket counter. Sakari grabs himself a queue number for the fast lane aka. "Gold Member Card/Business Class" as the text next to the button says.
The male and probably gay guy (Gay as in homo. Why would a straight man work at an airport ticket counter?) asks Sakari for his Gold Card. Sakari naturally won't show the clerk his non-existant goldmember. Or card. Nonetheless Sakari insists that he is a business traveller and that the person who secured his tickets is infact a Gold Member. So Sakari is naturally a spokesperson for that person and for himself. After using his computer for a measly 10 seconds the gay clerk rudely informs Sakari that the only people that can get him a new ticket are Lufthansa. Sakari is now truly baffled and wonders how the laws of Karma could have ever forsaken such a nice person as he is. He also wonders how a gay guy could be so frank. Sakari goes to a back up plan which includes considering the distant possibility that his memory has played a trick on itself and falsely assured itself that no paper ticket was ever received by the unlucky hero of our story.
So first Sakari calls his dad and asks him to make sure that there aren't any plane tickets at Sakari's aparment in the back of the top drawer of his computer desk where he hadn't bothered to look for one since he knew that he didn't have any crummy old-fashioned paper tickets. The whereabouts of Dad who cruised off a mere 12 minutes earlier heading who knows where and as fast as a 59 year-old mand cruing in a Citroen C4 are unclear. Still, private Dad is on the mission which includes grabbing the keys to Sakari's flat from Mom and Dad's house near by, driving to said flat, opening the top drawer of the computer desk, putting one hand all the way to the ticketless back of the drawer and informing his son that there infact never were any tickets.
Meanwhile Sakari does what any 25 year-old civilized male would do in his situation. He calls his mother. It's not even 11 pm the day before where Mom is, but she's already asleep and wakes up to answer the phone. Ms. Liisa Pelkonen, or Sakari mother, gives Sakari a number to Lufthansa for him to call. After hanging up with drowsy Mom, Sakari dials the easy to remember number 020 358358 without realizing that he almost had given his mom a heart attack.
A voice on the phone informs Sakari in Finnish, his native language, that he is on hold. All he can think of is, are there other schmucks around Europe like him trying to get "new" tickets for flights leaving in just over an hour. The beeping sound on the phone changes and after that a male voice answers in english. To make matters worse, neither of the two participants of the phone call speak english as their native language as one is Finnish and the other is a sucky Austrian, German, a kraut or whatever. To make everything more difficult the phone is crackly since people having the conversation are probably some some thousand miles apart, talking in different countries. The many sounds of a busy airport at seven in the morning definitely don't help the comprehension of the call. After six minutes of weak communication Sakari knows one more thing. Lufthansa can't help him now. Lufthansa also claims that some crummy paper tickets have been sent to Sakari's Mom's address in Helsinki some 6 months earlier.
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment