September 29, 2008

Someone's face almost got up close and personal with my nunchucks.

A few months ago, my parents decided to plan a family vacation to China. They found a travel agency from some Chinese newspaper and got a pretty good deal. I went through the process of getting my passport and started saving up my vacation days. We were scheduled to leave SFO this Thursday.

The travel agent didn't seem to be all that great. It seemed every time my parents called in to check up on the trip status, she kept asking for more papers and documents that she failed to collect or notify us about previously. She kept insisting that everything was okay and would get done on time.

Last Thursday, a friend of my aunt was scheduled to depart on a similar trip to Asia from the same travel agency. They went to the airport and found out there were no tickets for them. They were unable to contact the travel agent. They went down to the travel office and found it completely cleaned out. I think my aunt told my mom about it on Friday.

On Saturday, my mom tried to call the agent. Nobody answered the office phone. She finally got through on the cell phone, but got some story about being in the hospital and would take care of things later, which was exactly what she told my aunt's friend a few days before.

On Sunday, my parents went to the travel office in Chinatown and found it empty. They had our money and our passports, visas, and whatever other documents we turned in. My parents filed a report with the police and discovered that a whole lot of folks had also very recently filed reports against this travel agent.

This was where I went into Mad Cal mode. I would not have minded if something came up and we had to cancel our trip to China and just got a refund. I'm sure even my parents might have been okay with that. I was upset that they took our stuff and tried to run. All I needed at this point was a name, a phone number, and my special edition 5824 nunchucks. I would have used the spiked flail, but this was going to be in Chinatown, so you know, I had to match weapon to environment. I was going to use my now empty vacation time to serve up some vigilante justice.

Then this afternoon, my family calls me to tell me the trip is back on. Apparently the FBI or SFPD finally got a hold of this travel agent, who was calling all her clients trying to make amends. My parents got our passports and documents back and went around the agent to get our trip booked. She still owes us money though, so I'm hoping I can still use the nunchucks.

So on Thursday, we head off to the land of Chinese food. Of course, over there, they just call it food.

2 comments:

Bob said...

You could have dual-wielded nunchucks and the spiked flail, or maybe the Board with Nails.

Enjoy your trip!

Anonymous said...

i'm old skool...I woulda just gone for the board and nails, double handed baseball swing to their butt.