Too Much Far Too Early

I started another 4 day trip today. This time, I had a very early show time of 5am. The problem with this time is I cannot fly from Madison to Chicago in time for my show time, so I have to drive, which means getting up at 1am and leaving the house by about 1:45am. So needless to say, no matter what happens during the day, it is going to be a long day. Today was no exception.

We get to the airplane this morning and we all are doing the preflight checks. One of the flight attendants come up to us and hand us a handle. What was this handle for? That would be to flush the lavatory. We call maintenance to come fix it, delaying our first flight already, as we are not going from Chicago to Florida without a lavatory. The mechanics come and they start playing with the handle trying to reattach the handle (anyone see where this is going?). The genius that is this mechanic decided to not close the lid of the toilet, so when he dropped the handle, it did not bounce off the lid like the smart thing would be, but it falls into said toilet never to been seen again (hopefully!) Way to go. Of course this is not a routine item that needs to be replaced, so they have none in Chicago. The closest one is in Phoenix. Rather than wait, the mechanic goes and takes one off a plane in the hanger. This time he closes the lid, and we are on our way.

That is only the beginning on the smart people though. On our way to Jacksonville, FL, one of the flight attendants calls up to us advising us of another stupid situation. A passenger was complaining of a 'horrible sinus headache' and wants painkillers. Now, he also said he gets these headaches EVERY TIME HE FLIES! So why not bring your own Advil chief? For us to be able to dispense any thing out of our first aid kits, we have to go through "Med-Link" which is a radio frequency that patches us through with an various Emergency Rooms across the nation. So because this smart one did not think at all, we have to take a doctor away from REAL problems to get authorization to give this winner some Advil.

Then, we get to Norfolk, VA, where we are going to spend the night. We call the hotel to have the hotel shuttle pick us up as usual, and they tell us the driver called in sick. Okay....well who is going to pick us up? We all just want to get to the hotel. The front desk person does not know what to do, even though we have three crews stay at this hotel EVERY DAY, they did not expect us. We finally --- after 25 mins of arguing --- get the manager's authorization to take a cab to the hotel at their expense.

I am going to bed at will wake up when the general population gains a few IQ points (or tomorrow morning at 4am, whichever comes first)