Why
Americans fail Geography classes
-
Submitted by K. Liston
Supposedly
true Stories told by travel agents.
A client called in inquiring about a package to Hawaii.
After going
over all the cost info, she asked,
"would it
be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii?"
I got a call from a woman who wanted to go
to Capetown.
I started
to explain the length of the flight and the passport information
when she
interrupted me with "I'm not trying to make you look stupid,
but Capetown
is in Massachusetts."
Without
trying to make her look like the stupid one,
I calmly
explained, "Cape Cod is in Massachusetts,
Capetown
is in South Africa." her response....click.
A secretary called in looking for hotel in Los Angeles.
She gave
me various names off a list, none of which I could find
I finally
had her fax me the list. To my surprise,
it was a
list of hotels in New Orleans, Louisiana.
She thought
the LA stood for Los Angeles,
and that
New Orleans was a suburb of L.A. Worst of all,
when I called
her back, she was not even embarrassed.
A man called, furious about a Florida package
we did.
I asked
what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando.
He said
he was expecting an ocean-view room.
I tried
to explain that is not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of
the state.
He replied,
"Don't lie to me.
I looked
on the map and Florida is a very thin state."
I got a call from a man who asked,
"is it possible
to see England from Canada?"
I said,
"No." He said "but they look so close on the map."
A nice lady just called.
She needed
to know how it was possible that
her flight
from Detroit left at 8:20am
And got
into Chicago at 8:33am.
I tried
to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois,
but she
could not understand the concept of time zones.
Finally
I told her the plane went very fast, and she bought that!
A woman called and asked,
"Do airlines
put your physical description on your bag
so they
know who's luggage belongs to who?"
I said,
"No, why do you ask?" She replied, "Well, when I checked in with the airline,
they put
a tag on my luggage that said FAT,
and I'm
overweight, is there any connection?"
After putting
her on hold for a minute while I "looked into it"
( I was
actually laughing) I came back and explained the city code for Fresno,
California
is FAT, and that the airline
was just
putting a destination tag on her luggage.
I just got off the phone with a man who asked,
"How do
I know which plane to get on?" I asked him what exactly he meant,
which he
replied, "I was told my flight number is 823,
but none
of these darn planes have numbers on them."
A
woman called and said,
" I need
to fly to Pepsi-Cola on one of those computer planes."
I asked
if she meant to fly to Pensacola on a commuter plane.
She said,
"Yea, whatever."
A business man called and had a question about
the documents
he needed in order to fly to China.
After a
lengthy discussion about passports,
I reminded
him he needed a visa.
"Oh no I
don't, I've been to China many times and never had to have one of those."
I double
checked, and sure enough,
his stay
required a visa. When I told him this he said,
"Look, I've
been to China four times and every time
they have
accepted my American Express card."
