[nagdu] my version of things.

[Cindy Garcia]

Hello everyone.  My name is Cindy and I rode with Peter Donahue to and from national convention this year.  For those of you that have not been following along, Peat was forced to pay for an extra seat because of his size and because they said that e had to have the armrests down, and they wouldn’t go down cause of his size.  Well Peter and I didn’t think that was fair for different reasons.  For peat, he felt that it should not matter if the plane is not full and that it is discrimination.  I agree with him to a certain extent, but I feel that it was not right cause he has a big guide dog anyways so why make him pay.  Well on the flight over to Detroit, this was where it got crazy.  Some egotistical manager came up to us at our seats, and told Peat that he needed to pay for an extra seat and he asked for a credit card.  Well seeing as that we had to wait and we were just about to take off, that kind of made me mad because I wanted to depart on time.
  For Peat, he was trying so hard not to loose his temper. For those of you who don’t know Peat, he has a short temper. Ha ha Well it was crazy because the check that he gave the guy didn’t go through and I was just like let us go and he can buy it later on our way back home.  So they finally said after like five minutes that he wouldn’t have to pay for it this time.  Well as you can imagine, Peat was outraged at what had just happened, and I was just happy that I didn’t have to deal with his hot temper.  I also felt that it was not to much of a big deal that he is a big person because they would have had to give him the extra seat because of his dog, so why fuss you know?  Well when we got to the hotel, Peat called the airline and I think if I can remember right, he went ahead and bought the extra seat.  Well on our way back at the Detroit airport, he had to get another boarding pass cause of the extra seat thing, and wouldn’t you know that
 all of the computers decided to shut down!  Just his luck right?  Well he stood there for I think like an hour before he was able to get his pass.  Thank god we got there early.  Then it turned out that the people on these planes didn’t care about his size.  Peat was not happy about that either because he realized that he didn’t even have to buy that extra seat after all.  We just had bad luck on the way up there.  Well when we got home, he was able to speak to someone about getting a refund and he did at least get his money back.  The thing that gets me in this situation is that we didn’t know what the real rules are and so what to believe.  What regulations do we follow?  Does he buy an extra seat or not.  Should he buy one if he has a large dog anyways?  That is what I asked myself.  What kinds of things do I need to look forward to when I get my first dog?  I certainly would not be able to afford an extra seat at all.  I know that Peat and I
 both found it embarrassing because they made a big deal because of his size factor.  I mean my goodness that is the American way after all a lot of people are big people.  I will quit rambling here but I just felt since Peat was telling you all about this that I should let you know what happened from my perspective.  Someone needs to look in to this and see what the real rules and regs are most definitely.

Cindy Garcia