First Circle of Hell

I have officially decided that the Eighth Circle of Hell, reserved for the atheists and baby-killers, is one endless cycle of customer service. It may not surprise you, after hearing this information, that my college trip is not going/has not gone well. That would be, in no small part, due to the lovely customer service representatives at your friendly neighborhood online travel brokers. (Well, not friendly, and definitely not neighborhood).

I can sum this up easiest by saying that somehow, in the past 24 hours, I have been to Texas. "Why were you in Texas?" one who knows me might ask. "I thought you were going on a college trip to Boulder! YOU LIED TO US!" Well, calm down, my friends, and allow me to explain.

It all began from a stupid decision to attempt to fly from Flagstaff to Phoenix. The flight, understandably (because we're Flagstaff, and we just roll that way) was over an hour late in its departure. I missed my connection by about ten minutes. For the purposes of this discussion, we shall be defining the Flagstaff Airport as the First Circle of Hell. Kind of purgatory-ish, and you don't really suffer there, it's just the crippling boredom that slowly strips away your soul.

After a bumpy plane flight (the stupid thing was tiny), we arrived in our Second Circle: The Phoenix International Airport. To be fair, the only really negative thing about the airport itself was that nobody wanted to be there. Seriously, I saw a big fat ZERO people smiling while I was there (except for some of the people working there, and that was slightly unnerving). Their unfortunate joyless faces were probably a result of wherever they had been previous to their arrival in the Second Circle (consider Circle 1.5: the parking lot; but that's a different story).

And then, somehow, we jumped all the way to the Eighth Circle (sorry, Dante, not goin' in order here). For the next two hours my mother and I attempted to haggle with customer service representatives from Priceline, U.S. Airways (who actually did a pretty good job once we were there in person), Payless Car Rental (in retrospect, this was probably not the best idea), Continental Airlines, and the Millenium Hotel in Boulder, Colorado. The Priceline representatives did not speak English (that was fun), the Payless representatives forced us to pay for a completely new reservation even though we had already paid the last one, the Millenium Hotel screwed up our reservation (when we finally arrived, we didn't have a room), and Continental Airlines had a never ending cycle of an automated voice asking me questions and not understanding my answer.

We made our way through a few more circles (I'd put the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport at around the Fifth Circle, maybe Sixth), but it was that customer service that ruined my weekend. It was my own fault; I had absentmindedly said that my Friday had been amazing. Little did he know...

So, here's how it's going to work:

First, you'll have a phone line. It's automated, so maybe you'll think you can beat the machine. Your goal: to escape from Hell. You will be told, by the devil herself, that if you can convince the decisions committee that you do not belong in Hell, you can leave. So you pick up the phone, and you begin your trip through endless automation.

It will ask you such gems as "please state your purpose" and when you do, it will direct you towards the Torturer's Department, which has nothing to do with what you have just said. It will put you on hold for around a day, and when the Associate Torturer's Assistant finally tells you (in a language vaguely representing English, or whatever your native tongue is) that your claim is not in his department, before you can ask for help he will redirect you back into the machine.

This will continue for the rest of your existence. Sometimes, you may actually make it to the Claims Department, but it will be after hours, and they will refer you to a representative in the Acquisitions Department, which is not authorized to release you, and you will be forced to start all over again.

But don't forget the hold music. I am convinced that the hold music in Hell is Justin Bieber singing the chorus (not the rest of the song) of Baby, over and over and over again. And you will be forced to listen, because if you pull the phone away from your ear, the Claims Department representative will finally come on the phone for two seconds before assuming you are not there and hanging up on you, at which point you will start again.

Now, here's the kicker: after about two years of this, without eating, sleeping, breathing, etc. (all the normal things that living people do), you will realize that you cannot beat the machine. You can come close--that Claims Department is right at your fingertips--but you will never, ever leave. But there will be the vain hope in you that you can beat the machine, and you will continue, crying, clawing your ears out some days only to get through and not be able to hear the representative, so you are dropped once again. You will try and try, but you will always fail.

Yep, Customer Services: the modern myth of Sisyphus.