The Egg hits Manhattan! We landed on Thursday after a fairly decent flight. It started out looking a bit dismal - the plane was small, the seats were narrow, I was stuck next to a Texan lady with typical American proportions who in all fairness really needed a seat and a half to herself. Luckily the woman in the window seat offered to move to an empty seat further up the plane for the Texan scooted over and we had a bit more room. It wasn't a bad flight and we only had a few short bursts of screaming, it was just hard work keeping an active 11month old entertained in a confined space for 7.5hrs all on my own.
I was tired and a bit strung out when we landed at Newark and Chloe was a bit discombobulated as well. I had two suitcases I was pulling along behind me along with a carseat, my hand luggage and a baby in a Ring Sling. I was a packhorse. And, yes I guess it was my own fault but I refused out of principle to pay $5 for the use of a luggage trolley but I wasn't going far, all I had to do was walk through customs and to the Passenger Pick-up Point where a car was waiting for me. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The car company that was supposed to pick us up was nowhere to be seen, my mobile SIM card apparently doesn't work abroad (who knew?) and the Courtesy Phone I was told to use to call the car company wasn't connecting through to them. I was getting a bit stressed. I got $200 out of the cash machine, changed a $1 bill into quarters and found a payphone to call Kate. After it had eaten my first lot of quarters, after I had slammed the handset down and stomped back to the exchange booth a tearful mess, got new quarters and trudged back to the bank of payphones I wasn't exactly in the best frame of mind. I threw my bags on the floor, my wallet on the shelf under the payphone and finally got through to Kate. She was in the process of giving the car company an earful and said she'd send them back to the Passenger Pick-up Point and I should go back out and wait there. Fine. I grabbed my bags and went and stood back out in the heat. The car finally arrived, the guy spoke hardly any English, there was much confusion over the payment method...it wasn't getting any less stressful. Chloe was kept occupied in the car by the monumental task of eating what was for her a very big apple, as she was being driven into The Big Apple. The driver dropped me off at Kate's work so I could pick up her keys. Chloe was happy to see Auntie Kate and Kate was pleased there were no more spontaneous bursts into tears at the sight of her like last time. Chloe was much admired in the offices of Calvin Klein. We said goodbye and got back into the car to be dropped off at Kate's apartment. When we were pulling into her street I started looking for my wallet to pay the guy. unfortunately my wallet was still sitting on the shelf under the payphone at the airport where I had left it. Actually, I'm sure it was long gone by then. There was much swearing. We stopped at the door, the driver asked for payment, I told him I had left my wallet at the airport, he asked for a credit card. I repeated again that I had lost my wallet and therefore didn't have a credit card. He asked if I was paying with cash instead then. Umm, no, I just told you I lost my wallet, I don't have any cash or credit cards. He wasn't getting it. I was getting more and more worked up. I asked to borrow his phone so we could call Kate and she could pay with her credit card over the phone. No-go, apparently they don't accept payment over the phone because they need to physically make a carbon copy of the card, company policy. The solution? Drive all the way back to Kate's work so she could give him her card to take payment. This is when I kind of lost it. In my defense, let's just re-cap:
-I was very tired after a sleepless night, a 6am wake-up call and a long, solo pane ride with a baby
-I had waited for and been messed around with for an hour and a half once I had landed by this car company
-I just discovered I lost my wallet containing my credit & debit cards, Driving license, pictures of me and Kate that I love and a freshly withdrawn $200
-I had a cranky baby who was tired, hungry and getting more and more aggravated at being confined to a plane, a sling and then a carseat for most of the previous 12 hours.
All I wanted to do was to get her up into the apartment, get her some food, let her scamper around, have a shower and chill out. Now he wanted to keep us in the car and do another 1hr round trip back to Kate's office. I totally freaked out at him. I know he was a powerless pawn who was tied to his shitty company's stupid policy but the fact that he seemed to have no empathy for my situation kinda drove me over the edge. I think it was possibly the first time I have actually screamed at someone, though Kate says she's sure it's not the first time he's been screamed at. Needless to say I could have handled the situation better. After some negotiations we managed to extricate ourselves from the vehicle, leaving one of my suitcases hostage. A rather inauspicious arrival.
Luckily it has been all uphill since then.
I feel the pain...
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