[1163] in Humor
HUMOR CLASSIC: A View From the Front
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Thu Oct 26 14:43:23 1995
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 14:40:22 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 12:50:24 -0400
From: Erik Nygren <nygren@MIT.EDU>
From: Katy King <katyking@MIT.EDU>
From: Barbara King <barbar@freenet.scri.fsu.edu>
From: Scotty Hall <gt9485a@prism.gatech.edu>
Diary of a Reservations Agent
WHEN BELLS ARE RINGING -- DUCK!
By Jonathan Lee
After 130,000 conversations--all ending with "Have a nice day and
thanks for calling"--I think it's fair to say I'm a survivor. I've made
it through all the calls from adults who didn't know the difference
between a.m. and p.m., from mothers of military recruits WHO didn't
trust their little soldiers to get it right, from the woman who
called to get advice on how to handle the man who wanted to ride
inside the kennel with his dog so he wouldn't have to pay for a seat,
from the woman who wanted to know why she had to change clothes on
our flight between Chicago and Washington (she was told she'd have to make
a change between the two cities) and from the man who asked if I'd like to
discuss the existential humanism that emanates from the soul of Habeeb.
In five years, I've received more than a boot camp education regarding the
astonishing lack of awareness of our American citizenry. This lack of
awareness encompasses every region of the country, economic status, ethnic
background and level of education. My battles have included everything from
a man not knowing how to spell the name of the city he was from to another
not recognizing the name "Iowa" as being a state, to another who thought he
had to apply for a foreign passport to fly to West Virginia. They are the
enemy, and they are everywhere. In the history of the world, there has
never been as much communication and new things to learn as today. Yet,
after asking a woman from New York what city she wanted to go to in Arizona,
she asked, "Oh... is it a big place?"
I talked to a woman in Denver who had never heard of Cincinnati, a man in
Minneapolis who didn't know there was more than one city in the South
("wherever the South is"), a woman in Nashville who asked, "Instead of
paying for your ticket, can I just donate that money to the National Cancer
Society?" and a man in Dallas who tried to pay for his ticket by sticking
quarters in the pay phone he was calling from. I knew a full invasion was
on the way when, shortly after signing on, a man asked me if we flew to Exit
35 on the New Jersey Turnpike. Then a woman asked if we flew to area code
304.
I knew I had been shipped off to the front when I was asked, "When
an airplane comes in, does that mean it's arriving or departing?" I
remembered the strict training I had just received--four weeks of
regimented classes on airline codes, computer technology and telephone
behavior--and it allowed for no means of retaliation. "Troops," we were
told, "it's a real hell out there and ya got no defense. You're gonna
hear things so silly you can't even make 'em up. You'll try to explain
stuff to your friends that you don't even believe yourself, and just
when you think you've heard it all, someone will ask if then can get a
free roundtrip ticket to Europe by reciting 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'".
Well, Sarge was right. It wasn't long before I suffered a direct hit
from a woman who wanted to fly to Hippopotamus, N.Y.. After assuring
her that there was no such place, she became irate and said it was a big
city with a big airport. I asked if Hippopotamus was near Albany or
Syracuse. It wasn't. Then I asked if it was near Buffalo. "Buffalo,"
she said, "I knew it was a big animal!" Then I crawled out of my
bunker long enough to be confronted by a man who tried to catch our
flight to Maconga. I told him I'd never heard of Maconga and we
certainly didn't fly to it. But he insisted we did and to prove it
showed me his ticket: Macon, GA.
Now I've done nothing during my conversational confrontations to indicate
that I couldn't understand English. But after quoting the ROUNDTRIP fare
the passenger JUST ASKED FOR he'll always ask: "...Is that ROUNDTRIP?" But
I've survived to direct the lost, correct the wrong, comfort the weary,
teach U.S. geography and give tutoring in the spelling and pronunciation of
American cities. I have been told things like, "I can't go stand-by
for your flight because I'm in a wheelchair." I've been asked such
questions as: "I have a connecting flight to Knoxville. Does that
mean the plane sticks to something?" And once a man wanted to go to
Illinois. When I asked what city he wanted go to in Illinois, he said,
"Cleveland, Ohio."
After 130,000 little wars of varying degrees, I'm a wise old veteran of
the communication conflict and can anticipate with accuracy what the next
move "by them" will be. Seventy-five percent won't have anything to write
with or on. Half will have not thought about when they're returning. A
third won't know where they're going.
A few won't care if they get back. And James will be the first name of
half the men who call. But even if James doesn't care if he gets to the
city he never heard of; even if he can't spell, pronounce or remember
what city he's returning to, he'll get there because I've worked very
hard to make sure that he can. Then with a click in the phone, he'll
become a part of my past and I'll be hoping that the next caller at
least knows what day it is. Oh, and James... "Thanks for calling and
have a nice day."
