If at First You Don't Succeed

Today was kind of hard--I was trying to get seats reserved for a flight that I'm taking with Gillian to San Francisco for the American Literature Association conference. First, I called US Air, and was told that United is the carrier (though it is a USAirways flight). Fine. I called United, waited on hold for forever, and when I finally got someone, she told me that she had a bad connection and I needed to call back. Infuriated with USAirways, I moved on to the next leg of the flight (handled by Delta), waited on hold again, and when the representative answered the phone, said that I had two questions, the first being how to change my name on my frequent flier account, and the second--it didn't matter, because although he was the reservations agent, he transferred me summarily to what he said was the frequent flier office as soon as the first few words were out of my mouth (thus ensuring that I would have to wait forever on hold again to get my seat reservation). Of course, he didn't even transfer me to the frequent flier people as he had said--he somehow connected me to someone in charge of military reservations. At least that person was incredibly helpful, and I was pathetically grateful.

In the meantime, however, as I was navigating phone tree after phone tree and waiting on hold for 15 minutes at a time, Allison Clare was periodically overtaken with the irrepressible need to talk to whomever I was talking to. She would shriek, "TALK TOO! TALK TOO! SAY HI! SAY HI JEW-EE" ("Jew-ee" being her name for JS, who's my most frequent morning phone chat partner). Anyway, at one point, I couldn't get her quiet and I was trying (after having been on hold, transferred, etc.) to speak into the automated system, which couldn't register my answers because of her interference. I carried her into her room for a time-out, finished the conversation, and went back to get her.

She was crying and sweaty--all damp-faced and contrite. "No yelling," she promised, without prompting.

"Yes," I said, "no yelling. Can you be a good girl now?"

"Yes," she said sweetly, burying her head into my shoulder with a sobby sigh, "Try again."