They Made The Trip… But At What Cost?!

When I am fourteen, my grandmother takes a friend and me to Scotland. She usually takes a grandchild and my other grandmother, but my other grandmother wasn’t able to come this time. She is very much a planner, and every detail about where we will be staying and how we will get from one place to another is planned months in advance… Well, almost everything.

One night, we realize that we have no train tickets to get us to the place we will be staying the next night. My grandmother is very frustrated because she thought she had planned everything. This is before widespread Internet, and well before smartphones, so we decide to call down to the front desk and ask them about arranging either train tickets or a taxi for us.

My grandmother has a very soft voice that struggles to be heard over the phone, and the friend with us strongly dislikes talking on the phone, so the job falls to me. I don’t remember much of the initial conversation, but we are given some options and hang up to discuss them.

We get close to making a decision and realize that the lady at the front desk has forgotten to give us one crucial piece of information: the prices! So, I call back. There’s a different lady at the desk now.

Me: “Hi, this is room [number]; we’ve been trying to arrange either train tickets or a taxi?

New Desk Lady: “Yes, I believe my colleague was assisting you with that. She is just about to leave, but I’ll let her finish taking care of you.”

Original Desk Lady: “I already gave you all the information. Now you need to make a decision yourselves.”

Me: “But you didn’t tell us—”

The original desk lady hung up.

We ended up deciding that, for the distance we had to travel, three train tickets were probably going to be less expensive than one taxi ride. I waited a good long time before I called the front desk back, to make sure I didn’t get passed off to the original lady again.

Now that I’m older, I get that she just wanted to go home, but that’s no excuse for being rude to someone for wanting all the information.