Ain't Nobody Got Time For That

For some horrible reason, our flight back to Seattle is flying out of the international terminal. Thank goodness we budgeted extra time to the airport in case of morning rush hour traffic. Traffic was fine, but they only had a single lane open for security. For international travel!

I'm more annoyed, though, by the terminal's complete lack of anything. Seriously. Want some duty free alcohol or a Coach bag? They've got you covered. Want breakfast? You're out of luck.

We also got to get into a fight with our cabbie, who pulled the ol' "my credit card machine doesn't work" routine. Of course it doesn't.

Even if I had $60 in cash, I wouldn't give it all to you. (Which, actually, thinking about it, I have a couple of hidden emergency $20s in my purse. But this was not an emergency. This was just a-hole town.) The cabbie on the way from the airport to our hotel pulled the same thing, but when we protested, he magically found his manual credit card reader. Today's cabbie wanted us to try and find an ATM, but I just said, "Oh well, I guess you're not getting paid."

Seriously, there's nothing more infuriating than a cabbie who knows you're a tourist and always tries to pull this. I never, ever get this in Seattle. And a quick, sub-$10 jaunt? Of course I'll pay cash. But it's never those guys that try to scam you. It's always the astronomical taxis to and from airports that never have "working" card readers.

But it was too early in the morning and we were just surly enough to refuse to back to down, and sure enough by some miracle, he was able to write it down and charge it to our credit card.

And yes, I kept the receipt, Jim took a picture of the cab number, and I will be double checking to make sure he doesn't charge us some ridiculous amount. Take that, cabbie!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:San Francisco,United States