FrEe At LaSt

I wonder if that's how Jack and Kate felt after finally leaving the island. Okay, maybe being in Singapore for a week isn't as drastic as being stuck on a fake purgatory island for six season, but that's kind of how I felt when we found out my dad was cleared to fly home...and more accurately when we all finally made it out of Singapore.

As soon as the doctors gave us the go-ahead, I jumped on booking our flight reservations and spent a cumulative total (I just looked) of 15 hours and 25 minutes on the phone with United via Skype. You're probably saying to yourself, "that doesn't seem normal?" and in that assessment you would be correct.

Internet connections and phone lines being what they were, my initial time spent with United clocked in at 6.5 hours. But it was okay, I'd gotten us all on the same flight; my mom and I with miles and my dad with his original booking credit. Yes, I did have to talk to four different agents to make it work without using all my parents miles or costing $900, but I did it! However, after dinner I got online to assign our seats and found a little surprise. When I logged in as my dad, somehow the first leg of our journey from Singapore to Beijing had been deleted. What the what?! I called back again, and another four hours later had reinstated the full portion of his ticket, or so they said.

The next day I called Air China to confirm our seats on the Singapore to Beijing flight and they said there was no booking under his name. I argued that I'd already fixed it and yes there was, check again! No help from them, they insisted I call United. Four hours of waiting then getting hung up on, I was so frustrated I had to get out. While I went on a walk, my parents called United from the hospital with the help of some of my dad's colleagues in Singapore. After several hours on the phone, United assured my mom it was all fixed, no worries. That evening they packed, had dinner and went to bed.

However, a little birdie on my {cough} whatsapp gave me a gentle nudging to double check. I called Air China to reconfirm our seats together and sure enough, the first part of my dad's ticket had been cancelled AGAIN. I wanted to scream. They told me they saw in the system that his ticket had been issued a total of eight times but never confirmed by United, so it was cancelled every time. Once again I had to call United to fix the problem, but at this point I was mentally/emotionally spent (and it was one a.m.,) I called my brother and told him I needed help. More accurately, I said, GET ME THE HELL OFF THIS ISLAND! Two hours later, United gave us my dad's new confirmation code, ticket number and a promise that this time we'd be okay.

Guess what, 3.5 hours later we arrived at the airport and at check-in Air China said my dad's ticket had once again been cancelled. How could that be? I took a deep breath and told them they needed to fix it, that is after I made me dad go for a walk around the check-in room and gave my mom tissues to stop her crying. After roughly an hour of sitting on uncomfortable chairs while I listened to our attendant make a myriad of phone calls in Mandarin, they happily announced they'd fixed the problem. They quickly issued our tickets and ushered us through customs and security so we could catch our flight. Sure I got motion sick for the first time in my life on the flight (I felt like I was part of a pilots training course... up and down, uuuuuup and quickly back down), but I just thought to myself, "even if I do have to use this barf bag, it's okay, at least I'm headed home."

Luckily, no barf bag was needed (mind over matter!) and we're back home. {sigh} I have a 10 page paper to write by Tuesday and dad has loads of tests still to be done--um... hooray?