If I Had Only Known...

That last day in Union City Brenda said we were to wait until Jan called because some of their people had gone over to Fort Worth to process loans and they may need us to travel to work another Disaster Center instead of going home.  Since I was just a loaner from FOCW, they had reviewed all their needs and as usual, try to send whoever is not needed any longer, home before a long holiday.  Loaners are the first to go home when not needed.  It is very expensive to pay overtime on Saturday and Sunday and then double time on a Holiday.

About noon we got the call to go home as planned--now there was a six hour drive down to Jackson, Ms to turn in our cars.  She would call us on the way to tell us where we were staying and fax the hotel with our flight plans.  Brenda did not want to leave yet so I left by myself.

The Country Inn did not have a printer that was working so I could not read the fax and had to call Jan until she finally looked up the confirmation number and I was able to go online and get my flight information.  It was at six am which meant I would need to turn in my car previous to that as the Country Inn did not have shuttle service that early.  I did not read the details very well except to verify my seat and see if I could change it to an aisle seat.  On the leg to Sacramento from Houston I saw I had a seat in First Class.  I thought it was because I chose my seat so late there wasn't anything left but in First Class.

However, the girl at the desk assured me the airport was just 12 minutes down the road at Exit 54.  Since I would be driving in the dark in a strange place and needed to know what to do with my car I thought I better do a dry run.

Good thing I did it was actually Exit 52 and there was a little swerve in the road which was easy to miss and two rental car signs which were easy to be confused by.  By the time I finally found where I was to go a half hour had passed.  The garageman told me no one would be there that early but blah, blah, this is what I should do.

So after a fairly sleepless night I did get to the Budget Garage in the early am and no one was there as he said and it was fairly dark.  I did not like it.

Going into the terminal from the garage I found I was first in line at Continental.  Since I did not have a readable eticket I thought I had to wait until the ticket man talked to me and he was having problems finding his key.   The young man behind me showed me I could just scan my passport and it would bring up the tickit in the kiosk.  Voila--there were my boarding passes and a mini version of an eticket.  Just what I needed for my voucher later on.   They were having problems without the key to print off our luggage tags but I wondered why they put a priority ticket on my luggage bags.

The flight home was good except I couldn't believe I really had a seat in first class.  The lady looked at my boarding pass and assured me I did.  However, I felt very uncomfortable there and was sure someone was going to claim my seat at any time before we left the airport.  Later when they asked what I wanted for breakfast I didn't know if I had to pay or not because they were talking on the intercom about prices.  I also chose to read my book instead of watching DirectTV because it had a slot for paying $7.99.  I asked for just a banana for breakfast.

So it wasn't until I got home and was working on my voucher that I studied the faded fax given to me at the hotel and saw that they had actually 'booked' me first class.  Evidently it was cheaper than waiting for another flight and paying me for the wait.  I could have really enjoyed that First Class ticket if I had only known I wasn't in the wrong place after all...  What a bummer trip.