Minnie’s Musings

Or lack there of.

I am spectacularly annoyed. In only the way that computers and the internet can make you annoyed. If I didn’t have jet-lag and therefore have no strength in my entire anatomy including my hands, wrists and arms, I would fling my computer out the window and emigrate to Patagonia.

Even getting back to Blighty from the far reaches of Niagara Escarpment (no I didn’t know Niagara was a huge escarpment, bigger than the one in the Tarzan movies, so it goes to show you learn something new… where was I?) caused me and my best beloved the unremitting fury of those who remember face-to-face customer service fondly and ever more distantly.

Having stretched our legs in a picturesque Toronto park – between downpours – we made it back to the car hire place in plenty of time to be ludicrously delayed awaiting the free shuttle bus to the terminal (which incidentally went no where near the terminal and plonked you at the train station to await the next shuttle). Said free shuttle bus had gone on quite the most circuitous route around the airport – which is ginormous – while the driver strained not to corner on two wheels to earn his tip.

Anyway, to cut a long and tedious story short, we attempted to drop our bags at the self-help bank of four machines (with one person helping numerous confused passengers). Said queue was a little long but not catastrophic, though our fellow queue-ees were getting increasingly twitchy as it stuttered forward.

We eventually got a place and Best Beloved hauled the case onto the conveyor bet. And I am telling you now, the machine clearly stated that our suitcase weighed 22.8 kg. While simultaneously accusing it of being over the 23kg weight limit. Be Beloved rotate the case. It still weighed 22.8 kg and the machine still claimed it was overweight.

Single individual helping confused passengers had changed gender but was otherwise occupied so I went to find someone else, who refused to come and help. By which time the machine had decided that our bag was not only overweight but we were now so late we needed to check it in at the check in desk. Single person helping confused passengers finally came to help we two furious and deeply, deeply confused passengers. ‘It’s overweight,’ she said. ‘No it isn’t’, said I, prodding the digital screen and the bright red 22.8 kg with a vicious index finger. Sensing she had lost a potential argument before it got going, she pressed some buttons, our case trundled off and we were briskly instructed to go through to boarding.