What a difference a year makes...

What a difference a year makes...especially this year in Ukraine. I have been carefully preparing Sharon and Bennett for all the possibilities of what to expect on their trip this year...well...it seems like this year has made a huge difference! Starting with the ticketing kiosk at DFW Airport. I have never HAD to use the kiosk before. There has always been several agents and a few kiosks to use...not this year. We had maybe one agent and five or six kiosks. Now some of you may be thinking..."what's the big deal, I use them all the time?" How well do you know me? Have you ever seen me and a computer interact? I didn't think so! If you had, you would have suggested right away that I move over and let Sharon handle it... but of course...I didn't do that! Surely after ALL these years I can handle ONE little kiosk??? Not so much! I finally punched in the reservation number, with help from the agent, then I got down to some other questions/necessary information for the form field. After inputting the information, it read "Airline personel must assist you please wait". So I did...wait...and wait... That should have been my clue to STEP BACK FROM THE COMPUTER SCREEN... After a year long wait, or possibly only a few minutes, an airline employee walked up (very irritated, I might add) and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was waiting on instructions from one of them. He said, not so nicely, just read the screen in front of you. I informed him that I HAD read the screen and it told me I had to wait on assistance from airline personel...he leaned over and rather sarcastically began to read the screen...until it came to the part to wait for assistance...I just gave him my teacher eye and waited for instructions. He did what it was he was supposed to do and I got my three boarding passes. THEN...it came time to weigh the bags...which I had already done and knew that one of them had to be moved around a bit. So then he said you need to weigh your bags, I told him I had and was waiting for instructions on what to do. Well, he informed me that they had a weight limit of 50 lbs, I told him I had weighed them at home and they were all under 50 lbs. His reply...they have to be weighed on OUR scales, I know, I'm just waiting for you to get here and tag them. I think he was a little disappointed that they were all 49.5 lbs and under! (not under by much) I am very glad that he didn't see us have to move stuff to a different bag!! (I know Karen we weighed them several times, I don't know what happened) After the bags were tagged and gone, Sharon realized that they didn't have but one boarding pass, we were going to have to get them at the next gate...I wasn't going to ask Mr. Congeniality to help us with something that might tax his customer service skills beyond what he could handle! Step one down...I don't know how many more to go! Till another adventure starts!