This is a day I won't forget in a hurry. I finally managed to get some sleep after the noisy neighbour clog danced on our heads at 2 am, but woke just after 6 feeling very unwell when the furniture removal started upstairs.
There was nothing to eat or drink in the house, so Paul said he would go to the supermarket, which opened at 7. He tried to have a shower but couldn't work out how to get the water to come out of the shower head, so he remained dirty. He set off at 6.45 to walk through the snow to the supermarket. This is the view from the front door of the condo which he took as he left. You can see it's early morning, it wasn't even properly light.
He was gone nearly 3 hours, having decided to collect our lift tickets and buy me some skis as well. God knows why! I was beginning to worry, and sent him several texts, but for some reason they didn't arrive at his phone. I had been wondering whether to get dressed and go out myself, or whether I should just resign myself to dying of hunger and pain from my sinuses, when he walked in somewhat after 9.30.
After coffee, some breakfast and a bath, I was ready to try to trace my lost case. Paul went to collect our ski clothes from where they had been stored, confirmed by email that the condo owner was sending a plumber to investigate the wet carpet (which was now dry) and went out for his first attempt at skiing in two years. After my bath, I washed my knickers and draped them over a light bulb to dry - I felt I needed to be dressed when confronting the plumber!
Dealing with the BA Baggage Claims phone line is a ridiculous process. You need a 10 digit file reference number, which of course I hadn't got since the nice man couldn't get the computer to work. It goes something like this
'Welcome to the British Airways Baggage Claims Automated Helpline. Please enter your 10 digit file reference number. If you don't have one, press the pound key.'
An iPhone doesn't have a pound key. I doubt any American phone does - and this is an American helpline. Having some computer knowledge, I pressed #. Paul tells me this means pounds weight in America. What a stupid choice of key - if they mean #, why don't they just say #?
Anyway, # worked.
It said 'Please enter the first 4 letters of your arrival airport'. I entered DENV.
It said 'If your baggage has been missing for less than 10 days, please press 1. Otherwise please press 2'. I pressed 1
It made clicks, played a few bars of music, rang twice, then said
'Welcome to the British Airways Baggage Claims Automated Helpline. Please enter your 10 digit file reference number. If you don't have one, press the pound key.'
I was back at the beginning again! I tried several times. It didn't seem to matter whether I pressed 1 to say my baggage had been missing for less than 10 days, or 2 to signify it had been missing for more than 10 days, it just went round in a circle. An updating of one of Dante's circles of Hell, perhaps?
Eventually, I phoned a general BA help line, where I navigated umpteen automated menus and was eventually able to speak to a real, live person. Not a BA person, they were too busy (probably dealing with people raving about the stupidity of the automated lines), so I spoke to a person in an outsourcing company. She was very sympathetic and helpful, and gave me a number for Denver Airport. Here, I navigated several more automated menus, and eventually again I spoke to a real live person, who said she would put me through. So the phone rang, and a voice said
'Welcome to the British Airways Baggage Claims Automated Helpline. Please enter your 10 digit file reference number. If you don't have one, press the pound key.'
So I rang the airport again, navigated the automated menus AGAIN, and, nearly in tears by now, begged the chap I eventually got at the other end to let me speak to a real live BA person. He said I couldn't, I would have to try again in the afternoon, as they didn't come in to work until 2.30. So I dosed myself with more paracetamol and listened to another audio book. Whenever the furniture remover upstairs gave me a little respite in the pushing around of furniture, I also had a little nap.
About 3pm, I girded my loins and rang the airport, navigated the automated menus AGAIN, and spoke to a person. I was in quite a state by then, and oh joy, he put me through to a real person who said she would be able to log my lost baggage on the computer. While I was talking to her, in between coughing and blowing my sore nose, the plumber arrived, and since I was in bed, I had no trousers on! The lady on the phone was very kind and said she would wait while I dealt with the plumber, so I put my trousers on and explained things to him, coughing and sneezing a good deal. Then I went back to the phone, and logged my lost suitcase. The only real problem was she needed a local phone number, not my mobile. In the end, I gave her the number of the Inn where we are moving on 28th; then I had to phone our friends who run the Inn and explain why they might get calls about my lost luggage.
Then I had to go back to the poor plumber and snivel and cough over him some more while we discussed the wet carpet problem - difficult, as it was no longer wet. He had a theory about an overflow that might have happened in one of the neighbour's condos. Presumably it is the same neighbour who has no carpets, wears clogs in the house, removes furniture to do the housework and does a clog dance at 2 am.
Paul had brought me some alternative pills which I took and I started to feel marginally less awful. The plumber explained how the shower worked - there is a rim around the tap - sorry, faucet - which you pull down once the water is running into the bath. So Paul was able to shower and we had early supper. I felt too ill to eat much anyway, and he was exhausted from the first skiing for 2 years, and 2 trips to the supermarket, wading through the snow.
We went to bed early again at 9, and were only just asleep when Paul got a call on his mobile phone from a courier to say he had my suitcase! This was obviously from the paper record taken the previous day by the nice man at the airport who couldn't make the computer work, since he had been prepared to take Paul's mobile phone number, unlike the lady to who I spoke earlier today. The courier was not a nice man, and demanded that Paul went out to collect the case, so Paul, who had no clothes on, threw some on and went out. I took the phone to speak to the courier while Paul got dressed, but he had put the phone down by then. I said 'O dear, he's gone' and Paul though I meant he had gone away, and went running out barefoot in the snow in just his shirt and trousers! He was not best pleased. Anyway, my suitcase is back, though one glove is missing of a really nice warm pair I bought in a National Trust shop. The gloves were just loose on top of other things - I obviously need more packing cubes.
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