Why our country is in trouble

[Pooker]

A DC 'airport ticket agent' offers some examples of 'WHY' our country is in trouble!

1. I had a New Hampshire Congresswoman (Carol Shea-Porter) ask for an aisle seat so that her hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window. (On an airplane!)

2. I got a call from a Kansas Congressman's (Moore) staffer (Howard Bauleke), who wanted to go to Cape Town. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information, and then he interrupted me with, ''I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Cape Town is in Massachusetts ..''

Without trying to make him look stupid, I calmly explained, ''Cape Cod is in Massachusetts , Cape Town is in South Africa ..''
His response -- click..

3. A senior Vermont Congressman (Bernie Sanders) 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's 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!!'' (OMG)

4. I got a call from a lawmaker's wife (Landra Reid) who asked, ''Is it possible to see England from Canada ?''

I said, ''No.''

She said, ''But they look so close on the map'' (OMG, again!)

5. An aide for a cabinet member (Janet Napolitano) once called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas .. I pulled up the reservation and noticed he had only a 1-hour layover in Dallas ... When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, ''I heard Dallas was a big airport, and we will need a car to drive between gates to save time.'' (Aghhhh)

6. An Illinois Congresswoman (Jan Schakowsky) called last week. She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:30 a.m., and got to Chicago at 8:33 a.m.

I explained that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois , but she couldn't understand the concept of time zones. Finally, I told her the plane went fast, and she bought that.

7. A New York lawmaker, (Jerrold Nadler) called and asked, ''Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know whose luggage belongs to whom?'' I said, 'No, why do you ask?'

He replied, ''Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said (FAT), and I'm overweight. I think that's very rude!''

After putting him on hold for a minute, while I looked into it. (I was dying laughing). I came back and explained the city code for Fresno , Ca. is (FAT - Fresno Air Terminal), and the airline was just putting a destination tag on his luggage..

8. A Senator John Kerry aide (Lindsay Ross) called to inquire about a trip 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 ?''

9. I just got off the phone with a freshman Congressman, Bobby Bright from Ala who asked, ''How do I know which plane to get on?''

I asked him what exactly he meant, to which he replied, ''I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these planes have numbers on them.''

10 Senator Dianne Feinstein called and said, ''I need to fly to Pepsi-Cola , Florida . Do I have to get on one of those little computer planes?''

I asked if she meant fly to Pensacola and fly on a commuter plane.

She said, ''Yeah, whatever, smarty!''

11 Mary Landrieu, La. Senator, called and had a question about the documents she needed in order to fly to China . After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded her that she 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, her stay required a visa. When I told her this she said, ''Look, I've been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express!''

12 A New Jersey Congressman (John Adler) called to make reservations, ''I want to go from Chicago to Rhino, New York .''

I was at a loss for words. Finally, I said, ''Are you sure that's the name of the town?''

'Yes, what flights do you have?'' replied the man.

After some searching, I came back with, ''I'm sorry, sir, I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a rhino anywhere."

''The man retorted, ''Oh, don't be silly! Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!''

So I scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, ''You don't mean Buffalo , do you?''

The reply? ''Whatever! I knew it was a big animal.''

Now you know why the Government is in the shape it's in!

Could ANYONE be this DUMB?

YES, THEY WALK AMONG US, ARE IN POLITICS, AND THEY CONTINUE TO BREED.

I don't write it, I just offer it for your consideration. Like manure, you just gotta spread it around.

[cpatinjones]

[Liz]

[Excel]

Now that is scarey !!......however, it answers some of my questions on how did our country get into the mess it's in...what's scarier is I don't know what we can do about it to make it better or if it's even possible anymore...between corruption, power hungry people, greed & then add stupidity & arrogance ( It seems politics attracts these types or maybe it breeds them)... it seems like a lost cause. Any miracles out there ?????

[Birdie]

Why would a smart, intelligent, quick clear thinking individual want to be associated with people like that?

When I did the W O R K thing I found that I would not sit near people in our group that were in that category. I certainly didn't want to have anyone think I was like them.

I think their arrogance is really the bad part.

I can see someone saying fly to CA and train to HI = sounds like something some of us might say...meaning the opposite of course. Or Lori's 'bare with me' and I thought wonder if the Sultan is ready for all of us to go up there and do it'...I mean we will, of course, anything to support a Sistah! And the Rhino and Buffalo...how many times have I said something like that, it would be more like 'you know that big animal name' place. Don't think I would do the Cape's though? I love the Pepsi-Cola/computer plane. Some of the others are not understandable.

[Charlene]

Did you ever watch Jay Leno interview college students on the street and ask them simple questions like who the VP of the US is or the speaker of the house is, and they don't know!

The next generation on Washington Hill

Charlene

[Acadianmom]

How many politicans do you know that have never had a real job including our President. We have quite a few around here.

I have said many times that I was going to Hawaii when they build a bridge but I do realize that's not going to happen.

Martha

[avalen]

oh lordy

[dayspring39]

With all that manure everything should grow nicely this year...
Kathleen

[retiredhappy]

And what about the people who voted these people into office? Scary, huh?

[OutandAbout]

OMG this was so funny. They are among us EVERYWHERE. I worked for a camera company, in the service department after high school, and many people would send their cameras in for service stating that it didn't take pictures. Cameras were fine, solutions were lens cap left on, no film in camera and not actually pushing the button to take the picture. Even in the pre digital days, when the camera was on "auto" one still had to depress the button to take a picture. Yes, some people thought that the camera would actually take the picture itself when in 'auto' mode. All we could do was shake our heads and laugh.

When I catch Jay Leno's Jaywalking segments I just shake my head in amazement. This is the future of our country. Unbelievable. Linda

[Birdie]

I worked for Xerox Corp in their telephone customer service operation for about 3 or 4 years. What an eye-opener that was. This was service for electronic typewriters and fax machines. And yes we had our peers that were way out there smoking something or drinking funny juice. It was everything from plugging, checking the plug with a lamp, to very large breasted ladies having their typerwriters type funny things when they would lean over and look at the paper!!! (That woman just knew someone was watching her and making her typewriter do that! ) So doesn't surprise me.

Besides I was just talking to Liz a couple of days ago and said something like, I need to get that Mile what's it magazine and start previewing stuff for Alaska. She asked what magazine - I said you know the Mile what's it I can't remember the name. She said, Oh you mean The Milepost. Yeah, that Mile what's it! Now if I can remember it until I get to the bookstore! They won't know what I am talking about. But they will have a funny story to tell!

[flick4411]

OMG, too funny and scary to boot! And Linda is right; they walk among us everywhere--not just politicians! What about these ijits who call themselves Birthers? They don't have anything better to do than worry about whether the President was vetted properly. Do they REALLY think a non-US citizen could be voted into the Oval Office? REALLLY??????

I remember reading customer service responses in the early days of PCs. They were hysterical. My favorite was the guy who called in to say he'd just gotten a new PC (one of the big tower jobs) and his coffee holder broke already. The customer service person asked what the guy meant by the coffee holder. After going back and forth with questions for a bit, the customer service person figured out that the guy was talking about the CD slide. The owner thought that was for his cofffee cup!!

Yes, they walk among us!

[JudyJB]

Very funny, but I suspect that the names have been inserted by someone who does not like these politicians because I heard these quite a while ago with different names.

I have heard live a person on a talk radio show who called in and kept insisting that people who lived in New Mexico should not be allowed to immigrate into the United States. Also, I have a friend who is Puerto Rican, and she often gets accused of being an illegal alien.

Another time, I heard a radio talk show host on a Chicago station, but obviously not from the Midwest, arguing that there was no reason someone couldn't just drive to Wisconsion from Michigan directly if they just drove around the top of Lake Michigan. No reason to even take a bridge. Some on his staff finally got a map out and showed him how Lake Michigan was hooked up to Lake Huron and you couldn't just take a short-cut across the lake somewhere around Traverse CIty.