luck or lack thereof

Does anybody believe in luck? We had endless lucky things happen during our Seattle housing search on the weekend. Someone's denied rental application meant an opening for us before the place even went on the market. All our timing worked out perfectly. But at the end of the trip Sunday night my luck ran out when United lost my suitcase. I still haven't gotten it back. I posted on it earlier but I took it down and will repost with more details when this ordeal is over. Let's just say I've been on the phone with United 5 times in the past 48 hours and all they've done is screw it up more each time I call by doing things like trying to correct an incorrect delivery address by making it even MORE incorrect if you can believe it.

I'm so fed up with them. And while I see the need for outsourcing in many situations and fully support the wonderful people overseas who do this work, it really doesn't work for some things. Helping people get their luggage back is one of those things. The folks there can do nothing more than read a computer screen that I can log into myself and then read a script about being sorry for my inconvenience. It's an endless loop that got me nowhere. They don't have local knowledge and are not instructed/allowed to do proactive things like contact the airport directly to track down my bag. After my first 3 customer support calls my calls got routed to someone local. I wonder if that is by design. The last woman I spoke to actually did call the airport where my bag is sitting so hopefully I get it back tomorrow and I'll share my whole ordeal. Let's just say, I'll never fly United again if I can help it. It's been human error after human error and it's simply unacceptable.

In other news, we were witness to a car accident today at Central and Castro in Mountain View en route to Maruichi for my favourite ramen. This white minivan with an elderly couple was stopped at a red light, right next to us. This junky car came careening down the street and rear ended the minivan. The guy barely hit the brakes. The shitbox was pretty much totaled with smoke and water spewing out of his crumpled hood. The scary part was that the guy got out of his car and at first I thought he was dazed from hitting the minivan but I don't think that was it. His shirt was half untucked, the other half tucked into his belt which had missed about 4 belt loops. He seemed sort of unstable, the kind of unstable that most people demonstrate after about 6 or 7 drinks. The man stumbled up to the minivan and attempted to open the rear door to climb into the elderly couple's back seat. I think all of us in the car said, almost in unison, what the fuck?? Luckily the door was locked and so he walked up to the driver's side window which the woman wisely kept partially closed. We looped the car around and I ran up to the van to give them a business card in case they needed a witness to the accident. I heard the guy who hit them say, "oh thank you thank you." I'm thinkin' don't thank me, I'm here to back up the old couple who just got rammed in the ass by you, you crazy fuck.