The Clove Saga, Part 3 (Long...)

Fiasco in the offing.

Calling Lufthansa was easy. You just dial a number. Or eleven numbers. And it’s not even as hard as dialing cause really we just punch the keys on the cell phone and hit send. It’s quite simple. No waiting for the wheel to click around before we can dial the next digit. Don’t have to dial at all really, though we still talk the walk we took 30 years ago rather than the walk we take now. What wasn’t easy was the $360 phone bill I would soon earn due to sitting on the phone virtually all day speaking to idiotic fools who spoke as if they had The Answer although they, like Philly, didn’t realize that it was the wrong answer, or maybe the question they thought was being asked was not the question The Answer was answering and so what they really needed to do is understand the original question but before they could figure it all out, The Answer up and left for Denver. 42.

What happens in this scenario is that you get driven in circles. It’s like one of those maddening dreams that I have from time to time. The ones where I am solving a mathematical computation and the summation is just not working and I must go through the accounting yet again, correcting errors but in the process creating them anew, and so on and so on.

And

So

On,

my mind swimming in spirals of illogic and confusion, interrupted by episodic out-takes of other dreams but always returning to the theme of the non-additive summation that drives me insane until I wake in a fog, quite unrested.

Lufthansa reservations could confirm my cat traveling in the cabin from Botson to Frankfurt, and from Jo-burg to Frankfurt and Frankfurt to Boston. But that all important Frankfurt to Jo-Burg leg? No confirmation. Why is that? If you work at Lufthansa reservations, feel free to choose one of the following two answers:

a) Because that flight already has capped it’s limit for the number of animals they can check into the hold

b) Because the booking is made through our Frankfurt office and we are waiting for them to confirm it

If the customer asks any follow up questions, repeat the mantra of the bookings that have been made once more: We are able to book your pet on 3 of the 4 legs of your trip [thus indicating success in acquiring the booking rather than a failure to book], the flight from blah blah to blah blah, the flight from blah blah to blah blah and the flight from “look what we’ve conveniently done for you” to “although this is all complete rubbish, isn’t it”. Gloss over the fact that booking the later two legs of the journey is moot if the critical second leg of the 4-part sojourn has not been confirmed. If the customer persists, tell him/her that this is all handled in Germany, and that s/he must call the offices in Germany.

And what happens if s/he does indeed call the offices in Germany, having looked up the phone number on the internet as nobody at US customer relations would give it to me?

So I called Germany. Yes I did. Germany said that the problem was that I wanted to make a booking for cargo in Germany. That means that I would have to call so and so pet transport in somewhere-ville and it would cost about $500 and yada yada. Oh, another thing Germany said…while we had them on the line…and this is very interesting. Those keeping score at home might want to lick their pencils and enter this onto the scoresheet.

There were no animals booked onto the flight from Frankfurt to Johannesburg.

None.

Zero.

Unless you’re counting humans, that is…

I believe that’s what they, in the fraternal order of major league baseball umpires, call a line drive caught at third with the bases loaded, turned for a 5-6-3 triple play. You are out, Lufthansa US Reservations! The side is retired on excuse for non-booking number 1! The run does not score. Red Sox win. Papelbon is pumping his fist as he marches toward to plate to greet Tek (who is, indeed, a Monster. True fact. Ask A-Rod). The plump policeman in the bullpen who exchanged fist pounds with Papelbon on his way out to the mound at the top of the ninth is smiling. Give it to us, Joe Castiglione: “Can you believe it?!?!!?!?”

I can. And it led to further enlightenment. Let me first remind you that at this point, we were leaving for Africa in two days. Furthermore, and this is critical to grasp the full meaning of the enlightenment promised to hit you, the reader, in just a few moments, it is important to know that our itinerary was to leave Boston on a Thursday, arriving in Germany on a Friday, and then depart Germany that Friday’s evening, arriving in South Africa, and subsequently Botswana, on a Saturday.

So I called German veterinary transport business X. I had a very informative conversation with a fellow whose name I have forgotten. He told me something very important because he asked a seemingly unimportant question. He asked me for my itinerary. I told him my itinerary. And the next words out of his mouth were:

“No. This is impossible.”

Fully perplexed, I asked the man to explain. So here’s the thing:

You see, South Africa only allows importation of animals into their country if they

a) have proper documentation

b) have been transported as cargo and are listed on the ship’s manifest

When the animal arrives, the documentation and such must be inspected by a qualified veterinarian on the ground and, you see, since I was arriving on a Saturday, there would not be a vet available at the airport as the vets do not work on the weekends. Thus, Lufthansa could not confirm the booking because the guys who do the bookings (the fellow I was speaking with) know about all this and simply will not book animals to arrive outside of a weekday (and, presumably, outside of working hours on a weekday) because if they do, that animal will essentially return on the very same plane as it makes its way back to Germany. So therefore, I had to either fly the very next day, so that I arrived on Friday, or I had to change my flight plans to arrive on Monday. But there simply was no other way around it, if I planned on bringing the cat with me.

Furthermore, the man told me that they have a great pet care facility in Frankfurt, where they feed the animals, let them out of their crates, take them for walks, etc. I can just see Clove going for a walk.

I then called back Lufthansa U.S. Reservations, tried to confirm pet travel for the Frankfurt to Jo-burg flight on Monday. It would not confirm. Things were going nowhere. In a mood of despair and desperation, I phoned the offices of Lufthansa in New York City, and left a message asking the people there to call me back. Like I said…a move of sheer desperation

Miraculously I got a phone call later that afternoon. It was a kind, logical pleasant German man phoning from Lufthansa offices in NYC. More enlightenment ensued.

What I found out is that there’s “putting the animal in the cargo hold” and then there’s “Putting the Animal in the Cargo Hold” and they are two completely different things, handled by completely different people. When South Africa says that in order for an animal to enter S.A., they must travel in the cargo hold and be on the ship’s manifest (this later bit being amongst the very fine print), they mean just that. But in order to get on the ship’s manifest, the item MUST be checked in as cargo, and thus all arrangements for transport are handled by Lufthansa CARGO. Reservations will be happy to check an animal into the cargo hold, but while they are being transported in the cargo hold, in this case, they would not be listed on the manifest. Two different things. Two different ways to go about arranging them. So the issue was that reservations could not book the second leg because

a) they can’t book cargo

b) that cargo cannot arrive on a weekend, and thus even if it could be booked, it would not be allowed to proceed on the dates given in my itinerary

wish they had just given me those two answers to begin with.

So I called up our poor travel agent and informed them that yet again, I was going to need to change my flight. I moved my departure to Saturday so that I would arrive in Jo-burg the following Monday morning. I had to book the hotel stay in Frankfurt again. It would have cost us more unnecessary funds to again change Shanthi’s flight plan and indeed made the whole switch for her from Emirates to Lufthansa moot.

I also called Lufthansa cargo. Turns out that they can book the cat as cargo the whole way. The whole way?

Well, no.

Or…

Shall we enter even greater depths of the fiasco? O! Let’s!