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Published: October 17th 2012
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On Saturday September 29
thI learnt something new about myself. I may need anger management classes, no actually scrap that, I wouldn’t need anger management classes if people could learn some manners and stop being rude bas***ds.
After waking up at 1:30am to make our way to the airport and after working for what felt like every day for the past 2 weeks I was exhausted and a tired Chris is a grumpy Chris.
We got to the airport way before our flight and tried to check in ourselves but our passports were not registering on the self service scanners. So we had to wait an hour and fifteen minutes until we could check in. By the time we got up off the sofas we had found to sit on there was a queue, we began walking behind some old women, I decided not to walk around them as I would only be in front of them and no one else so decided to patiently walk behind them. As they reached the back of the now enormous queue there was a column blocking me from joining the back of the queue, do I invade their personal
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I went around it of course. BUT!!! The guy behind me decided not to go around the column and instead cut in front of the column and in front of me. As I joined the queue he was edging himself further in front of me. Uh oh, the lack of sleep and his lack of manners were getting me angry at a rate of light speed. I felt my heart racing, my jaw and fists clenched and my breathing was now at jogging rate. Nikki turned to me laughingly and said “calm down”. She has witnessed me get angry with people pushing in front of me in the past, manners do not cost a thing.
After a very short while I politely turned to the guy and said “excuse me, I’m behind these women, I think you will find the back of the queue is behind me”. From past experience, saying this usually makes people feel embarrassed and they quickly go to the back but much to my shock this guy aggressively turned to me and
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Some things we almost missed whilst almost shouting he said “NO! I am behind these women and you are behind me!”. My heart was now beating so fast I thought I was going to have a heart attack, I don’t usually get this angry this fast but my lack of sleep meant I was like a ticking time bomb. Now using my angry tone I said “I don’t think so mate. I was walking behind these women all the way until the back of the queue” “No you fucking weren’t I was” he said “ask that woman there, she’ll tell you I’m in front of you” he said pointing at Nikki. With great pleasure I said “I will ask her, that’s my wife!”.
This was turning into a kids argument. Having grown up in an inner city London school I was, how shall I put it, a bit ‘rough’ when I was a kid. As a result when I have an argument my ‘rough Londoner’ side comes out.
I had three bags around my neck and sensing that a fight was fast approaching, well on my side at least, I began to try to take the bags off as
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Some things we almost missed in one of them was my camera and if he broke that during a fight I would kill him lol. As I began to try to take the bags off but the straps had become entangled with each other around my neck, as I tried to take them off I got impatient, which made me even more angry, and grabbed all of the straps and threw the bags on the floor (as you can imagine I’m still laughing at myself about that bit lol).
Uh oh I had reached the point of no return. This guy had officially pissed me off and now there was no stopping me, I had snapped. After I threw the bags on the floor I launched myself at this guy ready to beat the shit out of him but luckily for him and me (I don’t want to get arrested after all) Nikki and some men behind me held me back, stopping me from hitting him. As fast as I had snapped I had managed to calm myself enough in the same amount of time to refrain from trying to hit him again. Still shaking I turned to the guy and said
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After a short period of time the guy decided to join the back of the queue, good job too, I don’t know what I’d have done if he tried to push in front of me again at the front lol.
One guy a few places in front of us heard the commotion and shouted “you can go in front of me if you want?” trying to diffuse the situation. But by this point it was already over.
Once angry Chris had turned back in to normal Chris we talked to the people in the queue about where they were going whilst slowly edging our way forward towards the front of the queue. Once at the front we spoke with a representative from Air France about our problems checking in. The woman took our passports and went away for a few minutes and then when she came back she simply said “You’re not on this flight. Go to the desk over there and speak to them” pointing in the direction of the desk.
The
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Some things we almost missed feeling of disaster had kicked in. Had we somehow been conned by the internet company who said they had booked our holiday but really they had taken our money? All sorts of horrible scenarios were going through my head.
When we eventually got to the desk the woman looked up our flight number and names, quoted our reference number and then said “Your flights were cancelled in June by the tour company”. She did not offer an alternative or solution to our problem but believe it or not she was the most helpful person working for Air France.
The guy sat next to her was trying to put a payment through for a customer whom I’m assuming was having a similar problem to us “Your card has been declined” he said. The guy stood next to me said “That’s impossible. Can you try it again please?” to which the guy behind the desk said “No. It will get declined again”. The guy stood next to me was in shock and said “so you’re not even going to try?” at which point the guy behind the counter tapped a button and said loudly “DECLINED!”.
Wow, I think I have a new favourite worst airline.
After what felt like an eternity Nikki and I decided to bite the bullet and pay for new flights leaving the next day, at a cost of over £1800. We were hoping it was just the flights that had been cancelled and not the hotels but even if everything had been cancelled we were going to make this holiday an adventure and find hotels to stay in once we got there.
We went home to catch up on some much needed sleep and to try to find a way to organise the horrible stinking pile of poo this trip was turning into, at 2am we will be making our way back to Heathrow Terminal 4 for another attempt at making it to Peru.
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Sophie and Dale
Sophie & Dale
Oh dear...
What a rubbish start to your trip. I totally sympathise with the anger management as I (Sophie) am quick to react to situations such as that too, I can't believe you were going to have a full on fight with the guy though! Well done Nikki for pulling the situation back into control. I hope the next installment sees you safely on the plane and having one of the best adventures of your life to make the bad start pale into insignificance.