Flying the Friendly Skies

Heard at the United ticket counter at LAX at 10:20pm last night:

Passenger: “This stupid machine is not letting me check in! What’s going on?!”
Attendant: “You have to be checked in at least 45 minutes before your flight in order to use this self-service kiosk, ma'am.
Passenger: “Are you stupid?! It’s not me! It’s the stupid machine! It won’t let me check in!”
Attendant: “You have to be checked in at least 45 minutes before your flight in order to use this self-service kiosk, ma’am. You are too late to check in here; you have to go to the staffed lines to check in, but I’m not sure you’ll make it.”
Passenger: “But my flight to Philadelphia is at 11:55! That’s more than an hour and a half away! What are you, stupid?! This is an outrage!”
Attendant: “No ma’am, I believe if you check your itinerary you’ll see that the flight is at 10:55.”
Passenger: “No! It’s at 11:55! No wonder you people are going bankrupt! G-d! So stupid! This is a f*&^%ing outrage! A total f%$#@ing outrage!”
Attendant: “Ma’am. I believe you will find the flight to be at 10:55.”
Passenger: “Let me just check the stupid f$%^&*ing itinerary and you’ll see that….oh. my. god. 10:55. So what the hell am I supposed to do now?!!!”

Moral of this story: If you are going to be a jerk and unleash a diatribe of expletives on an unsuspecting and well-intentioned service provider, at least be sure you are RIGHT. To do otherwise is, well, “a total f&)*^%ing outrage.”