United We Fall

Buenos Aires is Spanish for "good air," but there isn´t much "good air" in Buenos Aires. At ground level it´s smoggy,muggy and smells like Detroit; higher up it´s full of airplanes run by a company that´s doing its best to make this trip difficult for me.

Everyone´s had airline-facilitated travel logistics nightmares, so I won´t get into this in too much detail, but here´s the story in concentrate. I was supposed to fly Houston to Chicago to Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires, from where I would get a ferry across the river to Uruguay. The flight from Houston to Chicago left two hours late, so I missed the flight to Sao Paulo and spent the night in Chicago O´Hare.

"Is this going to cause a problem with my checked pack," I asked.
"No," said United.

Next day while checking in for my flight I was offered a new itinerary in which I would skip Sao Paulo and instead go from Chicago to Washington DC to Buenos Aires, thus saving several hours.

"Sounds great, but will this cause a problem with my checked pack," I asked.
"No," said United.

In Washington DC, the plane bound for Buenos Aires wouldn´t tell the pilot what the altitude was, so we had to switch planes. We switched planes and flew to Buenos Aires.

Now I´m in Buenos Aires, albeit a day and change late, but my backpack could be in Chicago, Washington Dulles, Sao Paulo, or in the belly of a broken 767 in a hangar somewhere. The one place it definitely isn´t is here, and in exchange for my trouble United has offered me the grand sum of $50 to replace what was lost, which in Buenos Aires (the New York of South America) will go about as far as it would in the New York of North America.

But here´s the real nailgun to the nuts: it isn´t even $50 cash; it´s a promise of reimbursement provided I keep receipts and only buy "appropriate travel-related replacement goods." That means no beer, though I would argue it´s both a travel-related good and a necessity in this situation. They disagree. I asked.

So I spent this morning making an accounting of the belongings that will be getting me through the next month. Aside from that tenuous promise of $50, here´s what I´ve got:

• Boots, pair of socks, pair of black pants, pair of boxer briefs, red T-shirt
• Grey Jansport backpack
  
• Eyeglasses, eyeglasses case, eyeglasses cleaning cloth
• Toothbrush, toothpaste
• 3 pens (one blue, two black), Green highlighter
• Two notebooks (one pocket size, one book size)
• Half empty case of Icebreakers mints
• 40 oz. water bottle
• University of Chicago Spanish-English dictionary
• 250 Spanish vocabulary flashcards from high school
• Passport with yellow fever vaccination card
• Copy of defunct flight itinerary, Copy of health insurance card
• Wallet
  
• 2008 Lonely Planet guide to Uruguay
  
• National Geographic from Feb 2009

I´m going to wait in Buenos Aires for another 24 hours to see if my pack plays catchup. If by tomorrow afternoon it isn´t here, I´m taking my mints and I´m going to Uruguay. F*** it.