Just a Smidge: airlines

Showing posts with label airlines. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Mobile Dentistry?

I’m happy(?) to report that my family dental office has apparently merged with a major international airline.

I got an automated email this morning from West Village Family Dentistry, reminding me that I needed to schedule my next cleaning appointment. That was expected. What was not expected was the Lufthansa logo next to their name, or the Lufthansa logo prominently displayed in the main header area at the top of the email, with “Lufthansa” written next to it.

So, apparently, my small family dentist office in Rocklin, California has merged with Germany’s flagship carrier, the fourth largest airline in the world. This is an interesting development. I wonder who bought whom?

The email simply read:

Regular dental visits are crucial to maintaining a healthy smile and our records show that you are past due for a cleaning and exam. Request an appointment above and let us know what times work for a visit.

Hope to see you soon!

- Your Friends at West Village Family Dentistry

Oddly, there was no mention of the merger, or how it would affect my dental care options. There was also no mention of why Lufthansa’s impressive computer scheduling system didn’t know that I already have an appointment scheduled in April. Maybe all the Rocklin appointments got wiped out if there was already a flight scheduled at the same time when they integrated the two systems? That’s probably what happened.

Also conspicuously missing from the communication was any mention of the obvious changes I will encounter at my next visit. For instance, am I now required to arrive at my dental office two hours before my cleaning?

How does security work now? Do I need to bring a passport or a REAL ID to check in at the counter after May 7, 2025?

If they do the arms-over-your-head full body scan, will that double as my x-rays? Is that covered by insurance, or is that free?

If I have TSA PreCheck, do I need to wait in the waiting room with the commoners, or can I go directly to my dental chair?

If I purchased a Business Class cleaning, how will that differ from a First Class or Coach cleaning?

Will the dental chairs be replaced by more Lufthansa-ish seats? If so, will the little button on the arm rest recline my seat enough from its upright and locked position to allow them to work on my teeth?

Will getting into the new dental chairs now be called “boarding?”

Will a hygienist come by with a skinny cart and offer me complimentary water, soft drinks, and coffee? Will beer and wine be available for purchase? Will the drinks be delivered by my hygienist through the little sprayer nozzle?

How do the complimentary snacks work now? The little bags of pretzels and snack mix seem like they might work against the main goal of the appointment.

Will the new dental chairs now have seat belts and flotation devices built into the seat cushions?

How do the oxygen masks work in the event of a loss of office pressure during my visit? Will oxygen just be delivered via one of those hospital nose-hoses instead of a yellow mask and bag so they can keep working in my mouth? Also, the office ceilings are pretty high. Will the nose-hose be long enough, and do I still need to pull down to start the flow of oxygen?

As you can tell, at this point I’ve got more questions than answers about this merger.

I’m currently on hold with Lufthansa customer service to try to get some clarity.

See you soon,

-Smidge

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Wednesday, March 3, 2021

I'm Getting No Emotional Support Up Here

Well, the emotionally supported fun is over. I have an upcoming flight on Southwest Airlines, and they sent me an email last week to remind me that as of Monday the 1st, my emotional support wolverine will no longer be welcome on the plane.

Travel notice: Starting March 1, Southwest Airlines will no longer accept emotional support animals and only dogs will be accepted as trained service animals with appropriate documentation.

Well, that’s a fine how do you do! I called customer service to ask about my alternate emotional support badger or at least my emotional support ferret, and the answers were still no. The nerve.

How am I supposed to keep the sweaty, smelly guy from sitting in the middle seat and crowding my armrest now? And what am I supposed to do with all this foaming white chicken-flavored toothpaste I used to put on their little lips to make them look rabid?

I guess the airlines have their reasons. I mean, there was the woman at Bradley International in Connecticut who was allowed to bring her eighty-pound emotional support pig onto a US Airways flight a while back. It went bad pretty quickly when the other passengers immediately started gagging from the stench of all the emotional support, and that was before the pig actually pooped in the aisle and then began screeching when the now emotionally unsupported owner tried to clean up the mess.

And the poor little emotional support animals sometimes didn’t even make it onto the plane if their paperwork wasn’t in order. There was even a tragic case where an emotional support hamster didn’t make it at all. Lacking the proper documentation outlining his emotional support cred, Pebbles the dwarf hamster was denied plane privileges at the ticket counter. His owner, a college student who obviously needed more emotional support than one tiny rodent could provide, tried for hours to find another way home. After she exhausted every single possibility, with the obvious exception of a ton of other possibilities, she flushed poor Pebbles down an airport toilet in order to be rodent-free and fully emotionally unsupported for her flight.

I would argue that if you were willing to flush the very hamster that was supposed to bring you emotional support, you didn’t need an emotional support hamster in the first place. You needed a team of emotional support human therapists.

But be hopeful for little Pebbles! As someone who has personally witnessed a large black rat go down one toilet into the sewer pipe only to pop out of another toilet moments later, I remain convinced that Pebbles probably maybe made his way through the swirling vortex and into the airport sewer system, alive and well. And maybe after an epic hamster adventure filled with twists and turns, the little guy eventually made his way up a main sewer line vent shaft and out onto the airfield, where he was probably sucked into a jet engine, or eaten by a large hawk. Either way, he went out like a hero. Godspeed, Pebbles.

But let’s forget about all the pigs, ducks, bunnies, peacocks, and doomed hamsters that led us to this moment. I believe the straw that broke the emotional support camel’s back was Daisy.

In a story that only could have happened in Florida, a flight from Orlando to Cleveland was delayed for two hours when passenger Cindy Torok refused to exit the plane after flight attendants discovered her emotional support animal was, in fact, a squirrel. All the other passengers had to get off the plane while the authorities bargained with Cindy in a classic rodent standoff situation. Thankfully, the negotiations ended peacefully after the Orlando police threatened to arrest Cindy and confiscate Daisy. Cindy was quoted as replying, “You’re not taking my squirrel. Sorry, you’re not. I refuse. You will not take my baby from me.”

As emotional support requirements go, I am assuming, based on the two-hour standoff, that Cindy is pretty high up on the list. What she failed to realize, however, is simple a fact that the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board, The American Psychiatric Association, and the Future Farmers of America have all known for years: squirrels are naturally incapable of providing emotional support. They do the exact opposite. Squirrels are evil.

I once had a squirrel, in a totally unprovoked attack, chew through the wires on the two end bulbs on my string of patio bistro lights, completely removing them from each end the string. This vindictive devil rodent then placed the now destroyed and useless pigtailed sockets and bulbs ever-so-delicately on very edge of the patio cover roof so that I could see them from the ground.

No animal capable of providing even an ounce of emotional support would ever be capable of such a heinous crime against warm and charming outdoor patio lighting.

In a glaring example of her need for support on many, many levels, Cindy was oblivious to the fact that she had brought a creature of pure evil and destruction onto a plane that needed to stay in the air all the way to Ohio. If that little hell beast had gotten loose into the wiring harnesses under the cabin floor it could have easily taken down that aircraft before they had even cleared Georgia.

Thusly, and sadly, thanks to Cindy and Daisy, the emotional support animal ride is over for the rest of us.