The last thing I packed was my new leather journal. I tucked it neatly in the side pocket of my purse where I could swiftly put pen to paper and memorialize every step of our long awaited vacation.

As a birthday gift, I was treating my husband to a vacation in Normandy, France. Since this summer is the 67th anniversary of D-Day – and I had long given up access to the remote as he has the television parked permanently on the History Channel – I wanted to treat him to his very own Band of Brothers experience. My entries looked something like this:

Dear Journal,
Day Une
We’re giddy with excitement as we pack our passports and copy of French Food for Dummies. Hmmmm, we have not been contacted that our airline (which I’ll hereinafter refer to as “Untied Airlines” to protect the inglorious bastards) experienced crashes – on the ground, that is – ablaze in all their technological glory. We are not aware that yesterday’s mayhem involving their computer systems is going to produce a domino effect of substantial delays at Dulles. In addition to the hours recommended for arriving at the airport, we have not been told that we should bring camping gear, Bunsen burners and plenty of reading material… and our own Army blanket.

Well, Journal, upon arriving, we experienced our own private DDay. Mass chaos ensued. There were few demarcation lines indicating which line was which. You could cut the tension in the air with a bayonet. I hadn’t witnessed this many lines since my last visit to Disney World. Lines converged into other lines, so passengers were baffled where one line ended and another began. And waiting with laser-white, clenched teeth behind the counter were all of three agents, waiting on hundreds of aggravated passengers. [Send note to Untied Airlines: Train agents to smile and at least pretend to have a sense of immediacy. Tell them this is one time they are allowed to fake it.] One agent overheard me say we were trying to get to Paris. She turned to us and said, “You’re in the wrong line, soldier. You should be over on the other side of the airport in the international line.” [Insert growing aggravation and boiling blood pressure of rookie traveling husband here. Note to self: Stay calm and he will stay calm.] Battle fatigue was starting to set in. We hesitatingly stepped out of line and headed over to the other side of the airport. There we were told by a very surly, dressed-in-black agent that if we already had our boarding passes, we had to go BACK to the original line, whether or not it was an international flight. At this point, we had lost our place in line, and were being told to regroup and start over. [Delete expletive hurled at agent…]

Traversing yet again through more zigzagging lines, we then noticed a [insert sheik or other foreign diplomat here] with an entourage of travelers–wives, children, their children, bodyguards–bypass the lines of people and approach an agent. Quicker than you can say “foie gras terrine,” she dropped everything to wait on them. We watched with jaws dropped as she processed their 45 pieces of luggage (now leaving only two teeth-clenching agents available to wait on the masses). Approaching the computer kiosk, the screen spit out an error telling us it was too late to board. [Delete expletive hurled at inanimate object.] Although we still had time to sprint to the plane, the agent insisted we needed to get “rebooked.” [Note to self: Contact business professor at Harvard to see if he would approve of sending a half empty plane to France just to keep said company’s arrival times in check.] Upon finally approaching the enemy after waiting in yet another line, she attempted to find an alternative flight to Paris. Her shaking head and clicking porcelain nails were a dead giveaway. She found a red-eye flight for a future day, but only having a week for our vacation to begin with, we had to decline. We exchanged our Euros at the monetary exchange, took our less-than-at-value U.S. dollars and took a cab home.

Day Deux
A.M.: Cry. Spend morning cancelling two hotels, site tours, a rental car and restaurant reservations. Transfer funds to checking account from savings for now useless European GPS map purchased. Attempt to get refund of non-refundable ticket. Take an antacid.

P.M.: Compose computer-generated, generic letters in response to the computer-generated letters from Untied Airlines with their insulting gift certificate of $125, which would barely fill the CEO’s gas tank or make a dent in his college loans from Harvard.

Day Trois
Come up with a Plan B. Never quit.
Buy some French wine.
Eat a really big loaf of bread with some brie cheese. Fake it. Read this issue’s Readers Choice answers from survey regarding stellar businesses and excellent customer service. [Insert sigh.] Erase any smiley faces you drew in journal.

Note to self: Buy Army blanket.

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Catherine DeCenzo is a freelance writer living in the Broadlands. She prefers the glass-half-full, humorous side of life and has an appetite for the irreverent in her personal blog at catclause.wordpress.com.