If you’ve read my earlier post about air travel, you would be familiar with the story of my journey to Cork whilst being shafted by Crapollo, the God of Air Travel.
In good Eastenders style, I left you with some “duff duffs” at the end, and this episode picks up where we left off, travelling between Bristol Airport and Stansted.
I was in communication via WhatsApp with the group we were meeting in Cork, and amongst all the piss-take there was a helpful message from our friend, Graham, who said he was also travelling from Stansted that evening, and the flight was delayed from 8:30 pm until 9:15 pm.
That was music to our ears, and really took the pressure off us, but we still timed a stop at a service station where we parked, ran to the loos, grabbed a sandwich and a drink, ran back to the car and got back on the road inside 6 minutes. (You can literally make a game out of anything when you’re looking for ways to cheer yourself up!)
As we approached Stansted, I thought it was safe to actually book our next lot of tickets, so I went on my phone to order them. However, because this was within two hours of the scheduled flight, we had to book them at the airport.
I could sense Crapollo flexing his muscles again, gazing down from the sky with a wry smile.
We parked the car (easily this time) and marched into the terminal.
We located the RyanAir customer service counter, and we didn’t realise at the time we had accidentally jumped the queue by going in the “out” way, but the nice women on the counter didn't turn us away even though there were some protests from the queue.
In hindsight, she was probably so used to dealing with angry customers that she didn’t care whether they’d queued up or not.
Anyway, despite how nice the customer service woman was, she still had to bend to the will of RyanAir policy, and we have since found out that RyanAir is in fact the love child of Crappollo and Cruella Deville.
You actually don’t know the meaning of the phrase “No Mercy” until you’re desperate to get on a RyanAir flight at short notice.
The usual “cheap as chips” flights suddenly rocket in cost, and we were seriously considering chartering a private jet as a cheaper option, but with time running out we opened our wallets and accepted the Tosser Tax.
Feeling a momentary sense of relief, we walked to the security area for bag checks, and just before we entered I said, “BALLS! We’ve got oversized toiletries! We were going to put these bags in the hold on Aer Lingus - we can’t take them in the cabin!”
So, we ran back to the RyanAir area and asked if we could check our bags in.
“You can…” grimaced the woman, “But we’ll need to charge you”
Crappollo bellowed with laughter from the heavens - he was really enjoying this!
“How much will that be?” asked Kev, expecting maybe £20 or so.
“Errrrr….that’ll be an extra £150 for both bags”
“B..B..But we’ve just re-mortgaged our house to get on the flight and you want to charge us even MORE?”
“Sorry, Sir. Yes”
It’s hard to describe what the “F*ck that for a game of soldiers” expression looks like, but you know it when you see it, and Kev and I backed away from the counter.
Rightly or wrongly, I had the idea of running our oversized fragrances back to the car.
We checked with the desk that there was enough time to make a ten minute dash to the car and still get on the plane, and they said yes, even though the flight was no longer delayed.
(Yes - Crappollo changes his mind about delayed flights if he can cause more f*ckwittery by speeding things up again)
So, Kev sprinted in record time to the car and back and we went into security.
Crapollo decided it was time to turn the heat up again and by the time we were out of security, we realised that it was almost 8pm and the gate to the flight closed at …wait for it…8pm.
So, we once again started sprinting.
It didn’t take long before we got to the first sign post for Gate 48:
GATE 48: 25 MINUTES
“WWWWHHHHAAAAATTTTT? Surely that’s a mistake!” we panted.
But it wasn’t.
We ran through what must have been a full mile of duty free shopping, then on past restaurants, prayer rooms (tempted!), corridors, escalators, more shopping, vending machines, open prairie, skeletons, then finally we were at Gate 48 by 8:15 pm.
Out of some amazing stroke of good luck, boarding was delayed and we stood in the queue for at least 10 minutes before we got on the plane.
I was sweating so much I had to strip off to my vest, but the sense of achievement was huge.
We finally got on a plane.
The point of telling you all this (besides giving you some entertainment) is to highlight how raised stress levels interfere with logical thinking.
Our heads were in a spin from the turmoil of the day, and although we did our best to remain cheerful, it didn’t take much to kick us over into headless chicken mode.
Had the boarding not been delayed, we would have missed the second flight, too, due to worrying too much about the perceived loss of throwing our oversized fragrances in the bin.
It would have been a small price to pay compared to the huge cost of the air tickets, but I’d lost my grip on what was important, and I decided to focus on a very insignificant problem rather than look at the bigger picture.
It can happen to anyone, so next time you find yourself in a stressful situation remember your judgement could be faulty, so take a few extra moments of reflection before you proceed on any given path.
So, was Crapollo done with us?
Definitely not.
Duff Duff Duff Duff Duff Duff Duff Duff…..