Fun fact I just heard about in a podcast. It appears to be a few months old but I just heard about it now. I figured we needed some non-partisan neat little fact to celebrate.
The Japanese are so highly efficient, detail-oriented, and accurate in their professional endeavors. Watch a Japanese construction crew/work crew/cleaning/sanitation/just about anything and it's far different than what you see in the U.S. They wear clean uniforms and actually work. Hell, even the scalpers I bought NFL tickets from (the Chargers played the Steelers in a preseason game in Tokyo, '96) honored the low price their runner quoted me because of their honor/integrity ideal.
I can envision an SNL Belushi skit, 'Samurai baggage handler'. I just finished the new Shogun series and I kept thinking about those Belushi samurai skits while watching it.
I had the same thought. I keep meaning to look it up. Remember a version of Shogun was televised around that time. I keep wondering whether Belushi's character was derived from that
Meanwhile in Florida https://www.cnn.com/travel/airline-...-felony-theft?cid=external-feeds_iluminar_msn
I volunteered to check a bag after the airline overbooked a flight from Pittsburgh to Charlotte, and naturally they lost it. Even after I made a big production out of giving it up for the good of the whole, with an exaggerated DO NOT LOSE MY BAG public display. Then, at Tri-Cities (the ultimate destination), I told them my home was brand new construction and not on GPS, but they said no worries, they were pros at delivering these lost bags. The lady couldn't find it. And she apparently called me repeatedly, but my charger was in the bag and this was before we all had a dozen chargers and it was standard USB connections. When she finally found me she had the nerve to lecture me about not answering the phone. We had a heated argument on my front porch. US Air, FTR. That entire trip was a movie script from beginning to end. It included the airline cancelling my return trip, getting pulled out of the line and interrogated at Reagan TWICE, being taxied out to the plane at Reagan three times with Bernie Sanders in the shuttle and everyone chanting his name, a lady with a screeching baby in MY seat, so I took hers...except she was in the wrong aisle, so I in fact was in....wait for it....Bernie Sanders' seat.
I have only checked a bag once in my life and I didn't want to do it but had no choice. Pack light and use a carry on. If it's long enough to have to do laundry so be it.
I also learned on that trip that they can drive you in lieu of a plane trip and it satisfies the contract. It is just "transportation", not a plane trip per se. The flight from Charlotte to TRI was cancelled, and I happened to be the closest to the person informing us and he asked "us" if we wanted to charter a van. But he looked directly at me. So I started asking questions, like how long to wait, how many people in this van, and is it a full refund, etc. He said the van would be a while since they hadn't planned for one (and it is a four hour drive if things go your way) and it would only hold a certain amount of people, we'd have to work it out, and no refund. I said I'd just take a comp'd rental car. No go on that either. So me and three other strangers rented a car on our own dime and drove to TRI. When I called to complain and get that leg refunded, that is when they cancelled all my return flights, without telling me that's what they were doing. They also didn't refund me anything on the rental. And to make it as insane as possible: we agreed to split the driving if necessary, and one of the ladies volunteered to go first. She said she'd probably make it the whole four hours, although typically she doesn't like to drive more than a couple of hours straight because longer trips is how she totalled her last two vehicles. This is as we are merging onto I-77.
Is it true that there is a policy that they must commit seppuku if they lose a bag? Might explain the streak.
Van charter eh? Hey, that reminds me of another John Hughes movie, maybe the van has the Midwest polka kings in it too?
