Just returned from the Mecca of SCs and Jerks in General (Sorry, uber long!)

[Shopping4Dummies]

We went to DisneyWorld about two weeks ago. We had a great time, but good gosh-doh-mighty we must have arrived during the First Annual Sucky Customers and Total Jackasses Convention! Let me see if I can remember most of the instances where the suck came out to shine!

1) As we were waiting for our baggage, a lady reached out and grabbed our bag (looked like hers, apparently) and started to walk off with it! We had to chase her down and point out the VERY DIFFERENT name tag she had never even glanced at. Still, this didn't stop her from being very pissed at us for forcing her to go back and get ANOTHER bag, even if it WAS hers!

2) It took the car rental company TWO HOURS to drive our rental van from one side of the airport to the other. Meanwhile, a pregnant Shopping had to sit on a painful baggage trolley in order to keep her back from going out! The lady who was in charge of getting our car to our location had an English vocabulary of just three words, "Five more minute" (not minutes, minute) because we heard this phrase about 24 times!

3) At Epcot they were having a wine and food festival. This was all fine and good until some drunks riding Rascal scooters (because they were too lazy to walk around the park, but more than willing to stand in line thirty minutes each time to get yet another plastic glass of wine about TWENTY TIMES OVER!) announced right beside me that they were going to run over my kids because they were tired of the crowds!! You should have seen how fast that Rascal scooter moved through the throng when this little short pregnant woman went psycho on them! LOL.

4) I was standing next in line at the food court getting ready to make my purchases and feed my mini herd when all of a sudden this rather stupid (not mean or sucky, just stupid) teenager plunks his bag of pretzels and his refillable mug right down in front of me! I kinda gave him an "Excuse me?" and he looked up as if FINALLY joining the planet Earth in progress and gave a half-arsed "Uh, sorry." I let him go ahead, because it was just a bag of pretzels and he didn't look too capable of making his way behind me in line, poor confused soul.

5) (Please pardon the language. It is cleaned up a bit.) At the Magic Kingdom, we saw a very graphic case of child abuse; stopped it, I think. We were walking by this very cute five-ish girl who was looking up at her mother with hope in her eyes asking her mom "Pleeaassee!?" She wasn't throwing a fit or making a scene; she was just being a cute little girl. This woman, who had one of those VERY HEAVY New York/Jersey accents (think Sopranos) reaches down, grabs this poor child by the collar, pulls her OFF THE GROUND a couple of inches and screams, "Oh my gawd!! You are not gonna f***in' start this sh*t with me! I am so f***in' sick and tired of your sh*t!! You need to shut the hell up!" and she would have gone on if we hadn't yelled "HEY! LOOK AT THE PSYCHO B*TCH SCREAMING AT HER CHILD! IT'S CRUELLA DEVILLE, EVERYBODY!!" which caused an entire group of people to give her the death glare. Just then hubby comes up, sees all the people glaring, gives the wife a "you dumb b*tch" stare, and *POOF* they were gone. The little girl's crime, you ask? She asked to ride the magic carpet ride again.

6) At Downtown Disney, you would not BELIEVE how many times we walked up to a register behind somebody who got something scanned only to hear them exclaim in horror and disbelief, "Holy sh*t! If I knew it was that much, I wouldn't be buying it! This place is a damn ripoff! I ain't paying that much for this sh*t! How about giving me half off on this?" Number one, it's DISNEY! It's expensive and you should have known that before you left! Number two, the prices are clearly marked on each and every item. Either learn to read or get glasses. Number three, this ain't no flea market! You can bicker the prices any lower; they're pretty much set. If you dont' want it, DON'T GET IT! Funny thing is, these people ALWAYS wound up making the purchases anyway. None of them EVER put anything back!

and finally...

7) My apologies for scaring the crap out of the girl who broke in front of us in the security line at the airport. I'm not apologizing for making you go back to the back of the line where you belonged, as you DID break in front of more than thirty other people waiting patiently in line; but the look on your face as you, this five foot nine girl looked down at the little mean five foot three preggo lady in petrified fear as I told you to get your privileged butt back to the back of the line tells me I must have ruined a good pair of your jeans by scaring said crap out of you. If you read this, you can send me the cleaning bill if my imposing short fat frame intimidated you to the point of self defecation.

I have more, but this is getting way too long, and I just wanted to give you the highlights!

[Shabo]

The moral of the story?

Don't mess with pregnant ladies.

I hope the rest of your trip was good though. And for the baggage thing, do yourself a favor and buy some electrical tape in 2-3 colors, then decorate the handles of your bag with it. That way you can easily differentiate your luggage from others. We did that with our black and blue luggage, and man, ain't no one walkin off with those without you seeing and KNOWING. Also, that lady might have been a thief. It's not uncommon for someone to go stealing luggage off the belt, especially around Christmas time. Good thing you caught her.

[Pedersen]

6) At Downtown Disney, you would not BELIEVE how many times we walked up to a register behind somebody who got something scanned only to hear them exclaim in horror and disbelief, "Holy sh*t! If I knew it was that much, I wouldn't be buying it! This place is a damn ripoff! I ain't paying that much for this sh*t! How about giving me half off on this?" Number one, it's DISNEY! It's expensive and you should have known that before you left! Number two, the prices are clearly marked on each and every item. Either learn to read or get glasses. Number three, this ain't no flea market! You can bicker the prices any lower; they're pretty much set. If you dont' want it, DON'T GET IT! Funny thing is, these people ALWAYS wound up making the purchases anyway. None of them EVER put anything back!

I went to Disney World 20 years ago, and had a major issue with the price tags. For reasons unknown to me, my brain divided every number by 10. So, if the price was actually $200, my brain saw $20. It got so bad that, by the end of the week, I wouldn't read the prices anymore, and would just have somebody else read them for me.

Dunno why/how that happened. Haven't had it happen anywhere else. Just there. Totally bizarre.

[Banrion]

I solve the baggage problem by having purple luggage, I got the fiance some nice green luggage. Makes life easy at the belt.

[Jewels]

I solve the baggage problem by having purple luggage, I got the fiance some nice green luggage. Makes life easy at the belt.

When I flew into Newark to visit my soon to be husband for Thanksgiving, I was riding the monrail with this couple who seemed very East Coastish (thick accents, lots of cussing...very Sapronos). They had bright red luggage, and mid-monorail ride realized that they grabbed the wrong bag. Luckliy the owner of that bag had her cell number on the luggage tag, so they were able to call her and set up a meeting to swap bags.

[IT Grunt]

1) As we were waiting for our baggage, a lady reached out and grabbed our bag (looked like hers, apparently) and started to walk off with it! We had to chase her down and point out the VERY DIFFERENT name tag she had never even glanced at. Still, this didn't stop her from being very pissed at us for forcing her to go back and get ANOTHER bag, even if it WAS hers!

Ah, yes. I had this happen when I went there for LotusSphere one year. I saw a guy with a cart grab what looked like my suitcase, but I saw him check the tag, and didn't put it back, so I assumed he just had one that looked like mine. A couple more bags, and he was off. Then what do I see coming around the belt? A suitcase that looks exactly like mine, except this one was so heavily packed, it was bulging! I swear the zipper looked like it was ready to give at any moment. So I grabbed it, and took it to the baggage office. I'll be damned if he gets his back without returning mine was my thought.

Sure enough, later that evening the airline dropped off my bag at the hotel. It just burns me that even though he looked at the tag, he failed to notice it had my name on it. On top of that, how could he miss the fact that mine was barely packed, and his was ready to explode?

[Boozy]

If you went to DisneyWorld and that was the worst of it for SCs, I'd say you got off lightly.

I dread the day that I have children and they inevitably start asking me for a trip to Disney.

DisneyWorld = Boozy's Own Personal Hell

[Becks]

I dread the day that I have children and they inevitably start asking me for a trip to Disney.

Just because they ask doesn't mean you have to say yes to their request.

--BeckySunshine, who has never been to DisneyWorld OR DisneyLand.

[king4aday]

WOW...Its amazing to me that you ran into that many sucky people at WDW. I go every year (I used to work for the mouse at Disney-MGM studios) and I have NEVER had a problem with other customers. Even when I worked for mickey I really never had any problems. The only day that was sucky was during super soap weekend (when all the ABC soap opera stars come to the park). Some of the people that come for that event truly put new meanings to the word PSYCHOTIC (more stories about that later if you guys want to hear them). N E ways...I have a full shift tomorrow at work...bedtime for me

[Reyneth]

Just to add to the "making your standard luggage look different" derailment, when I went on a trip to Spain with some members of my Spanish class, we all got pieces of red and black yarn (school colors) to tie on the handles. So when we were anywhere that baggage needed to be collected, we were able to get anyone in the group's bags. Made things quicker and way more efficient. So if traveling with a family or group, coordinate how you mark the bags and have a few people pull them off the belt and the other people get them ready to go.

[Giggle Goose]

I dread the day that I have children and they inevitably start asking me for a trip to Disney.

DisneyWorld = Boozy's Own Personal Hell

My mom always said "no" because she hates Florida heat, white trash people, crowds, spending money, and amusement parks. So does Dad, even though his reasoning was that Disney is an evil corporation. But how is a 5-year-old supposed to understand their reasoning???!

However, I don't resent my parents and I'm actually glad we went to Bumfuck, Maine for all of our family vacations. I don't think I could have learned to drive a car, a truck, and a boat, steer a canoe, cook for 20 people by myself, feed deer, skinny dip without a care in the world, play golf, bring the dog, and bond with my large extended family at Disney World with a price tag of under $a million bajillion dollars. But then again, I'm an angry working class kid.

PS: I'm not saying that everyone that goes to Disney is white trash, because I enjoyed myself when I went on a school field trip and met all kinds of really cool people. I'm just saying I don't think it's that great that Disney has this squeaky clean corporate vision of what makes a perfect family vacation. In fact, I can't wait to go to Disney California Adventure next month.....leaving the family on the East Coast.

[trunks2k]

1) As we were waiting for our baggage, a lady reached out and grabbed our bag (looked like hers, apparently) and started to walk off with it! We had to chase her down and point out the VERY DIFFERENT name tag she had never even glanced at. Still, this didn't stop her from being very pissed at us for forcing her to go back and get ANOTHER bag, even if it WAS hers!

Ugh! I hate it when people to that. Its one thing if you have a non-descript bag that can be easily mistaken for another one. But it's a whole other thing when the bag has some distinguishing characteristic. When I flew home from Europe last year, I had a bag to which I tied a very noticeable black and white checkered tie. The way I did it, it made the bag easily noticeable on the baggage carousel from far away. I figured nobody would mistake my bag for theirs.

Nope. I saw my bag come down chute and waited for it to come to my side of the carousel. When it should have come by, it was no longer there. I frantically looked around and saw someone picking it up off the ground and walking away with it. I had to barge through the mass of people to stop the person. Even other people around him made a comment that the tie should have been a dead givaway that it wasn't his bag. I later saw him pick up a bag that was similar to mine in shape, but a lighter color and no obvious tie on it.

[MadRocketScientist]

The moral of the story?

Don't mess with pregnant ladies.

I hope the rest of your trip was good though. And for the baggage thing, do yourself a favor and buy some electrical tape in 2-3 colors, then decorate the handles of your bag with it. That way you can easily differentiate your luggage from others. We did that with our black and blue luggage, and man, ain't no one walkin off with those without you seeing and KNOWING. Also, that lady might have been a thief. It's not uncommon for someone to go stealing luggage off the belt, especially around Christmas time. Good thing you caught her.

I prefer these Luggage Tags, easy to see and large enough to write your name on in Magic Marker.

[Raieth]

I have a set of pink camo luggage!! I never have to worry about thinking "is it my bag?"

[Becks]

I have a set of pink camo luggage!! I never have to worry about thinking "is it my bag?"

Did you order it from GK?