I'm their bitch!!

In July of last year, I had the thought of getting my wife something she really wanted for Christmas. I agonized over what to get her and then it dawned on me...she's always wanted to go to Rome. Italy, not Georgia. Personally, I have no desire to go to Rome but it wasn't about me so I shelled out the 3+ Grand for two round trip tickets and then thought about how to keep this a secret until Christmas.

The best laid plans and so forth...a series of events occurred near Christmas and the cat was out of the bag. Side note - who puts cats in bags? It seems to me that a cat in a bag would be pretty pissed off. I digress. She found out about the trip and so we started to plan together.

Sometime in March we were still planning this two-week getaway when scheduling issues began popping up. The daughter was graduating college. We were buying a new house in a new state. Could we be away from the baby for two weeks, etc. Long story short, we decided to cancel until we were better situated to take that much time. I called the airline, UNITED AIRLINES, to see what my options were. I knew a refund was out of the question because of the tickets I purchased. The agent confirmed that and told me I could use the funds on a different ticket. I said, "ok, great. Sometime in the future?" "Yes," she said. It's good for one year." I said, "awesome. I'll put together something for next february." She said, "that won't work." I asked, "why not?" She said, "It's only good for a year." I replied, "right, it's March. That's less than a year." She said, "Oh no. a year from when you purchased the ticket." I said, "I purchased the ticket in 2018. That means I have 3 months to spend $3k+ or I lose it?" "I'm afraid so," she told me. Well F$%# me!! There was no way I could do that. With the move, the graduation, I've recently had a career change...it was out of the question.

Fast forward 3 months. Mrs, Compulsivegiraffe says to me today, "Let's get away." "Ok," I said. We are both sorely in need of some R & R. After kicking it around a bit, we locked in on a destination and I went on to the United Airlines site to apply my credit. I selected the destination, class of service, entered our traveler information, applied the funds, and hit PURCHASE. At which point the site asked me for a credit card. Credit card? I was well under the credit. I looked more closely. They needed $600 more dollars to complete the transaction. For what, you may ask? For the $300 change fee per ticket...for tickets that I already purchased. Here's the beautiful part. The $600 could not come out of what I already paid. They required an additional $600 and then cut me another credit for the difference between the the Rome trip and this little 3-day getaway. In short, I paid over $4,000 for a two-week trip to Rome that became a three-day weekend in Los Angeles because United Airlines is Satan and I am their bitch.

This is the zenith of organized crime.