Suzy Says

Yesterday was all about love, but today is all about hate. I don’t care what people say about hating things using up too much energy, or how negative feelings come back to you multiplied like DDT. The same people also tell you that karma catches up with people who do bad things, but in my experience, the evil-doers seem to be flourishing nicely, thank you, so karma must move, if it moves at all, at a positively glacier-like speed. I think karma is either a myth or a couch potato of the lowest order.

Faithful readers know that my sister Megan was slated to accompany me to England on Tuesday. She was prepared to hold my hand and/or slap me, as necessary, and also distract me from horror and boredom with conversation. However, the Fates had other ideas.

The Fates seem to hate our family, if you look at the astonishing run of bad luck which is our recent history. Our bad luck streak is as impressive as the A’s winning streak, and in keeping with it, Megan’s husband Rob had a fairly bad accident in his truck on Sunday and broke five ribs. Thankfully, it was no worse than that, though he is in terrible pain and was only released from the hospital a couple of days ago, but it also means that Megan can’t go to England.

So I went to the United ticket office yesterday to cancel her ticket, only to be told that 75% of the ticket was non-refundable. The ticket can’t be transferred to me, either, even though I paid for it. I called Customer Relations and they said I can either take the 25% or Megan can use the ticket within a year, though it would have to be for a trip of equal or more value, in which case she’d have to pay whatever the difference was. Since the ticket was for full coach fare so I could upgrade it with miles, she’d have to go somewhere that costs $1,200 or more, which is highly unlikely. I told them that she doesn’t travel often, which is true, and that the reason we were going to England in the first place was to clear out our late father’s things, since he passed away last year, also the truth, but actual death didn’t impress them any more than a brush with it.

So even though Megan can’t go on the trip because Rob was nearly killed, and not because she just didn’t feel like going, they don’t care. They don’t care that I’m out $900 and that they are going to sell the seat again, effectively getting paid twice for one person’s seat. They won’t transfer the ticket to me, or give me credit for it. I pointed out that they could see I had paid for it with my credit card, and they said, “How do we know your sister didn’t write you a check for the amount later?” That’s how badly they don’t want to help their customers, and is indicative of the sink-like nature of what passes for their minds. I am just livid about this. How can they get away with it?