And he still doesn't get it...

So, last night I flew out of National, just before the big storm hit. But I almost didn't: the Maryland Shuttle was an hour and forty minutes late!

He was supposed to pick me up at 5:15. At 5:30 I called. "Oh, traffic's bad. He should be there any minute."

At 6:00 (I know; I shouldn't have waited that long) I called and said I was going to call another company. "Oh, there was a huge accident; he's on his way. He'll be there in 20 minutes."

"Are you certain of that?"

"Oh, yes, I'm talking to him."

At 6:25 I did what I should have done well before this (and would have without the lies): called Columbia Cab. Again (they're very responsive!) they said they'd send somebody "right away," (of course, "right away" from Columbia is 15-20 minutes...) so I called the shuttle to tell him to tell the driver not to bother. "Oh, my driver is almost there! He's in Laurel."

"Where?" I ask.

"He's at 198 & Rt 1 - he just passed there."

Now that's less than two miles away, so he'd probably beat the cab. Nonetheless, I did not call and cancel it.

Sure enough, fifteen minutes later, with no shuttle yet, the Columbia cabbie called to make sure of the address and tell me he was maybe ten minutes out yet. But while I was talking to him the shuttle pulled up. It was probably too late to get to National unless the flight was delayed - but then again, I've literally never taken this flight when it left on time. So I jumped in the shuttle and got the cabbie's address to send him the fare he was missing. He sounded quite surprised and told me not to send the whole amount. I'm going to anyway. It was a horrible night.

Anyway, the shuttle driver (who had transformed into a woman, but never mind) drove slowly even on the moving-very-nicely-thank-you Parkway and I got to the counter with 18 minutes to spare ... which is too late to check in. I must have looked stricken (I certainly felt that way) and the agent called the gate. Whew! Despite the "on time" notice on the website still there when I checked from the cab, the plane was in a delay. She checked me in - and at least at National there's never far to go from counter to gate. (I have a cat. I can't check in on line because I can't pay for her on line. Annoying as hell...)

The captain had the maintenance people looking at something, so at least the plane was there and not on the ground in North Carolina or something. We were waiting, and now I'm afraid we'll sit there and end up stuck in the storm. But yay! Wegot off the ground at 8:47 ... as the first flakes of snow started to come down.

I can't believe that shuttle guy would lie like that. Had he been honest - traffic isn't their fault - I wouldn't be so angry. He could have kept the damned fare; I'd already paid on line, after all. But his lying very nearly got me stuck, most likely for several days. So he's lost his firm a customer. There are other shuttles around the area. One of them gets my business from now on.