I am not a native Southerner.  This comes as no great shock to any of my Southern friends – despite the fact that I have spent over 20 years of my life living in the South, they can spot me as a Yankee from ten miles away. 

To my New York family, however, I am thoroughly Southernized.  I can no longer deal with winter.  Even though I speak 60 words in a New York minute, I do so with a slight Southern accent that has softened my nasal Great Lakes twang.  I no longer call the fizzy stuff in a bottle “Pop”. 

But the biggest change is that I am no longer rude.

 I used to defend us Yankees, because I never really grasped that we were, at a very basic level, rude.  We were “abrupt”.  We were “blunt”.  We were “honest”.  But not RUDE. 

That is, until I went home after a decade of Southern living for my brother’s wedding.  After two hours in New York shopping mall, I suddenly stopped in the middle of the atrium, looked around and pronounced “Mom, they’re right.  Yankees really are rude.  Just.  Rude.”

Now let me make a disclaimer.  There are individual Southerners that are rude – I know a few that rank amongst the most uncultured and uncivilized people in existence.  However, Yankees seem to have institutionalized it.

I have learned, however, by the Southern norm.  I no longer anger as quickly.  I no longer confront every challenge like a verbal boxer entering the ring.  I pull out the honey before the vinegar.

And it works.  A vast majority of the time it really, really does.

Wednesday was not a good travel day.  I am training new monitors, which means taking them with me on an average site visit, and planning extra time to allow me to get my work done, while teaching them my job.  This is important to me, because more monitors means fewer sites per monitor, which equals less road time for me.  I am all ABOUT less time in airports.

I had a bad feeling when our flight out of Little Rock was delayed, leaving us with less than 30 minutes to pick up our connection in Atlanta.  I approached the gate agent and asked her if there would be a problem making our flight out of Atlanta, because if there were, I wanted to reroute right away.  Oh, no, she assured me, they weren’t running that late, everything would be fine.

After pulling in to the gate at Atlanta with SIX MINUTES and two whole terminals between us and our flight to Knoxville, I began to realize that our respective definitions of “fine” might have a little variation. After literally running between terminals, we arrived at the gate two minutes late to find that our flight had already been closed.  No, they could not open it to let us on.  Yes, they would reroute us onto a later flight. 

3pm flight – standby only

8pm flight – standby only

10:41pm flight – got a few seats here.

Sooo…  What you’re telling me is that we will be waiting ten hours for a flight to take me to a city that is a three-hour drive away? During which we are on-the-clock the entire time?  And won’t arrive until almost midnight?

Hmm.  We take a vote. Driving wins unanimously.

With airport security the way it is and in the interests of NOT being irrevocably separated from our luggage (I had visions of it begin blown up on the tarmac when we didn’t show up for our flight), we went to the customer service desk to find out what we needed to do to “officially” remove ourselves from the manifest and insure that our luggage was not destroyed in the interests of national security.  As I explained the situation, the nice lady at the service desk exhibited the appropriate level of concern and empathy and proceeded to make all the proper official notations.  When she asked why we missed our connection, I explained that our flight had been delayed out of Little Rock, and since I have to charge clients for our travel time, it just wasn’t in our business interests to spend so much time sitting in the airport.

“I am so sorry that you have to drive – even though the ticket is non-refundable, since the delay was on our end, would like me to issue you a refund for this leg of your flight?”

Um.  So you are offering me money back?  Without my asking or demanding it?  Actual MONEY?  Uh.  Yes, please, I will take some of that.

I thanked her for being so helpful and expressed some regret (in the nicest terms possible, without degenerating into my “shaking-fist-out-of-car-window” Yankee alter-ego) that I had specifically asked about rerouting from Little Rock and they told me there would be no problem, no problem at all.

“Well, honey, I am so sorry they gave you bad information.  That’s something they could have checked on.  If you have a few more minutes, I can issue you $50 travel vouchers to compensate you for your inconvenience.  It will only take about ten minutes, if that’s all right?”

Okay, now so you are going to give me $50 toward my next flight.  Free.  And I haven’t pitched a fit yet? Well, okay then.  To top it all off, in a refreshing burst of expediency, it took her far less than the specified ten minutes – more along the lines of two minutes - to hand me three travel vouchers.  I smiled.

“And here’s a few free cocktail coupons for your return flight.  Sounds like you might need them.”

Not anymore, thanks to you, but yes, a martini would be awfully nice.

By the time we left the desk, we had not only offset the cost of the delay, but were pretty well compensated for the three butt-numbing hours in the rental car (note to self – do NOT rent a Chevy Cobalt EVER, EVER again).  By 7:30 pm we were safely at dinner in Knoxville, instead of looking forward to over three more hours of airport amusement.  I use the terms “looking forward” and “amusement” here by their strictest definitions.

So, folks, if you have to travel by air in the near future:

Fly Delta.  (Sorry, Valerie.)

While you are, if you happen to be passing through the Atlanta airport, look up Gloria Thomas at the Delta Service Desk in terminal B.  She’s a nice lady with some mad customer satisfaction skills.

And be nice.  Because I am betting she’s Southern.