Explanation pre-quote: I flew into New York (via Detroit connecting in Dulles to NY), and Laura met me after taking a Grayhound. We flew out together, New York, Dulles, Detroit. (If you fly Independence Air, you HAVE TO connect through Dulles. Every one of their flights is either to or from Dulles. It's just how it works. Also, for some reason, they always put the incoming flights on the complete freakin opposite end of the airport.) Anywho, Laura was nervous because our tickets had us arriving Dulles at 6:55 and leaving at 7:40 or somesuch, and thought our luggage might not make it. I told her that this was a case of gross airline overcompensation...our flight was to take off at 5:15 and they had said the other day it was a 40-minute flight from Dulles to New York. Which led to this conversation.)

Laura: You're sure that it was only a 40-minute flight?

Michael: Relatively; but remember, I am Lawyerman, not Pilotman.

Laura: Yes, but you can tell time. Were you in the air for 40 minutes or not?

***

The only thing more difficult than staying at the Gershwin Hotel is, apparently, leaving it.

Check out time was at 11. Laura and I had our stuff packed and vacated the room at 10, but our plane didn't leave until, as mentioned above, 5:15. So, at 10:05, we presented ourselves at the Gershwin Hotel's desk to check out, and asked them to hold their bags.

Has anyone else ever stayed somewhere where they CHARGE you a dollar per bag to hold it?

Up front, no less. It's not like you can stiff them; they could charge us when we return and want our bags.

(I found it particularly galling they would do this as I was signing the final bill, by which I was helping the owners of the Gershwin to have a much merrier Christmas than they really deserve.)

OK, so, we paid our ransom -- er, storage fee -- for our bags, and went off to explore the city. I made an abortive attempt to go on the NBC Studios Tour (it was full) and did some shopping, while Laura burnished her reputation as the Queen of Cost-Efficient Retail (Look Great, Save Mons.) We returned to the Gershwin for one last time, to pick up our bags.

Now, any hotel I've been in keeps the bags behind the counter (for free.) But not the Gershwin.

First, I asked them to call me a taxi to take us to LaGuardia. (If I spelled your name wrong, sorry, Fiorello.) Well, they couldn't do this, because there is no main number to call for taxis. You have to walk out to the street and wave.

Well, didn't that sound like fun. When you consider I had a suitcase, a laptop case and a garment bag, and Laura had two suitcases and a backpack, we were going to make a real interesting site making our way to the corner of 27th and Fifth.

All right, so, can I have my bags? Sure, the woman behind the counter said. We waited.

Then she said, "You can have a seat."

I didn't like the sound of that.

So, we sat on the Gershwin's mutated couch, waiting for our bags.

And waiting.

And waiting.

Now, let's be clear. While Laura and I had a great time in New York, we REALLY didn't want to spend another night at the Gershwin.

So, making this flight was something to which we aspired greatly.

After ten minutes waiting for the bags, I asked the lady behind the desk what was going on. She said that she had put out a page for them, and if I wanted to go find the guy getting the bags, I could go to the second floor.

Yeah. Me on the second floor of the Gershwin tracking down the guy who's supposed to have my bags?

That wasn't happening.

Eventually, our bags showed up, just as Laura pointed out a taxi which had pulled up to drop off some poor unsuspecting folks who were just starting their sentence -- er, stay -- at the Gershwin. I begged and pleaded with him to wait for our bags to be released, which he did. Ultimately, the fellow in charge of bringing our bags down showed up, and we made our escape from the Gershwin Hotel, hopefully never to return there, except to howl hysterically and say never again before returning to a better establishment.

***

PS: My ISP guy swears my connection will be better probably next week. So, if I remain light on the updates, it's because the snow does not allow the radio signal to reflect into my apartment so I can have Internet.

I don't understand what that means either, other than Blogger is slow to load at home. So be patient and I will try to bestow as much WMTTB goodness as I can on an Internet connection only Celerity could love.