Whoduhthunkit!?

Hey ya’ll…I gotta get a load off my mind so here I am again to share it with my lonely little blog here. You see, a couple of days ago I had to make reservations for our daughter to fly down here from her Mom’s house and I got lucky /sarcasm. I was treated to a 45 minute phone conversation-ordeal-torture session with someone who’s first language (or even 33rd) was NOT my own. This is a person in customer service mind you, someone employed for the sole purpose of providing a service and collecting the ducats of the public at large for a large underemployed airline company. It’s no secret that I have a major problem with people who expect to live here, work here, and collect the benefits of being a citizen here WITHOUT speaking our language. I posted about it large as life here back in September. Being part of the general public with no skillz is bad enough. Being a Service Rep. with no skillz is wrong on any number of levels.

I paid nearly $500 to raise my blood pressure and grind the surface off of my back teeth.

I had to spell my last name no less than 8 times.

In.A.Row.

Now it’s not like my last name is Wystcjestacjnewschik or something equally complicated to pronounce, it’s a fairly basic word used commonly when one speaks about aquatic animals. Not like Smith, say, but close enough. Everything went downhill from there. I had to speak to a supervisor, twice, because my little friend on the other end of the line could not understand why my daughter had a different last name than her birth mother. How could my daughter who’s last name was the same as mine (verified in triplicate) live with a man and woman who had a different last name? Who were these people? Why were THEY taking her to the airport? You are Mrs. Easilyspelledlastname and she is your daughter (ok STEPdaughter but I always feel like the Wicked One in Cinderella when I say that so I have always called her DAUGHTER. This is quite aside from the fact that I myself WAS a stepdaughter and it stung a little when people asked my stepmother "Is this your daughter?" and she would respond with a "She’s my STEPdaughter." as if that was something wholly different and somehow perhaps LESS). I didn’t feel it was a necessity that the Customer Disservice Agent have details pertaining to a somewhat strained divorce and custody battle that happened almost 10 years ago between my husband and his ex-wife so I requested a supervisor. After I exlained that YES a woman with a different last name due to remarriage was going to drop OUR child off at ONE airport so the child could fly down for her legal visitation and WE with the SAME last name would be collecting this child the supervisor gave the security OK and handed me BACK to Twitosaurus and we were off again.

Just a side note - Mr. Supervisor spoke the language.

We had to speak to Senor Supervisor again when we ran into a little technical difficulty with the number of people that we needed to list as secured folk to send and receive said child and whether or not we required ZIPCODES for the AIRPORTS she was traveling to and from. Were we MAILING this child or was she traveling like a human?! I wanted to list mother and stepfather at point of origination (because what if Mother and Father’s OTHER little person had a cold and Mother wished to stay home with headcold while STEPfather drove DAUGHTER to the airport??? Would they not allow him to fly the child?) Same on those of us who would RECIEVE the child. What if USMC Birth father had a job responsibility the day she flew IN and I had to pick her up??? Would they hold the child in shipping until the birth father could show if MY name wasn’t on the "We will RECEIVE" list? I had begun to feel like the Service Rep’s training certificate had been WAITING for my call so her training could be completed.

Onward we soldiered once the census was completed and we hit another snag at the name of my town. This sweet little burg has a V in it’s name. V as in Victor.

"D as in Debra?"

"No, V as in Victor."

"Das B as in Baby?"

"No…V…as in…VICTOR"

"T as in Tango."

"NO! VEEEEEE as in VICTOR, VEGETABLE and VAN!!!!"

"Sorry?"

*sigh* "Look…what’s your native language?"

"Pardon?"

"What language do you speak at home, with your parents - your family."

"I espeak Spanish."

"Great. Look it’s VAY as in Verdad. Tay, Oo, Vay, Dooblay Vay…VAY"

"OOOOh Vaaaaaay!!! Tu Hablas!"

She won…

Mexicanos 1 - Americans 0