(better) things come to those who ask

I don't like to ask for help. I don't like to ask for anything, really. But I'm learning to get over it.

I've been searching for a ticket to Boston for New Year's, so unsuccessfully that I was ready to compromise a lot on schedule and airport, until... kayak.com to the rescue! I found an ideal set of flights for about $160 incl. taxes on Delta. And then I went to book it, and got a "system unavailable" message. Repeatedly. So I called and talked to India, and the first thing the woman in India told me was that she couldn't even see the flight that I was trying to book. She asked me if I was sure that was the time and flight number. Yes, I was accused of hallucinating. I directed her to Delta.com, where she admitted that it did exist. She put me on hold for what seemed like hours, and by the time she got back the ticket was gone due to "schedule changes." She put me on hold again. To make a long story short, there was lots of holding, at the end of which I still could not by a ticket online; the outgoing flights I wanted had disappeared; and the flights remaining, some of them at twice the duration and a stopover in New York, had gone up in price by at least $50. I told India that this was unacceptable. I wanted back the wasted hour of my life, or at the least to not waste any more on looking for flights. So I asked to speak to a supervisor, and she gave me the line about how there were no supervisors, just coordinators. Bring it on! I got to talk to someone in Atlanta-- Thomas Friedman can say what he will, but let me tell you, there are advantages to talking to people in the country. I recounted my situation, and while she couldn't get me the evening flight that I'd originally wanted, she could get the only remaining one at the $160 rate (which I have to say, for the holidays, is really good). I'm glad I asked.

Of course, then I thought, this means I have to take all of Thursday off-- should I just take the week off so I can spend Christmas with my family, too? Suck it up, pay the extra $50-$100, maybe even fly through New York? And then I realized that I was Jewish and that anyway Christmas signified little more than rampant commercialism; that more time with my family, while a source of amusement for you, is often a source of insanity for me; that I didn't want to take that much time off; and that it was absurd to pay more to fly from DC to Boston through New York.

There was a great moment when I'd called Delta earlier over the pin issue. The recorded voice kept asking me whether I was calling for a new or existing reservation. I said "neither." The voice said "I'm sorry. I didn't understand you." I tried to press 0, to no avail. After a few iterations, I was annoyed, and answered in expletive. To which the voice responded, "I'm sorry. I didn't understand you."