Urban Legends
I'm sure glad you guys are placing these in the comedy forum.........
http://www.snopes.com/travel/trap/congress.asp
Claim: List of howlers collected by a Washington travel agent proves members of Congress are hopelessly lost about even ordinary geography.
Status:
False.
Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2003]
The following are actual stories provided by a retiring Washington, D.C. travel agent of 30+ years:
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I had a New Hampshire Congresswoman ask for an aisle seat so that her hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window.
I got a call from a Candidate's Staffer, who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information then she interrupted me with, "I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts." Without trying to make her look like the stupid one, I calmly explained, "Cape Cod is in Massachusetts, Capetown is in Africa." Her response ... click.
A Senior Vermont Congressman called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando. He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that is not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state. He replied, "Don't lie to me. I looked on the map, and Florida is a very thin state!!!"
I got a call from a Lawmakers Wife who asked, "Is it possible to see England from Canada?" I said, "No." She said, "But they look so close on the map."
An Aide for a Bush cabinet member once called and asked if they could rent a car in Dallas. When I pulled up the reservation, I noticed they had only a 1-hour layover in Dallas. When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, "I heard Dallas was a big airport, and we will need a car to drive between the gates to save time."
An Illinois Congresswoman called last week. She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:20am and got into Chicago at 8:33am. I tried to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois, but she could not understand the concept of time zones. Finally, I told her the plane went very fast, and she bought that!
A New York lawmaker called and asked, "Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know who's luggage belongs to who?" I said, "No, why do you ask?" She replied, "Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said (FAT), and I'm overweight; I think that is very rude." After putting her on hold for a minute while I "looked into it" (I was actually laughing) I came back and explained the city code for Fresno, CA is (FAT), and that the airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage.
A Senator's Aide called in inquiring about a trip package to Hawaii. After going over all the cost info, she asked, "Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii?"
I just got off the phone with a freshman Congressman who asked, "How do I know which plane to get on?" I asked him what exactly he meant, to which he replied, "I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these darn planes have numbers on them."
Origins: We've collected examples of this list of howlers dating from as back as far as 1998. Earlier versions fail to identify the geographically challenged as members of Congress, instead presenting them as 'a client,' 'a secretary,' 'a man,' 'another man,' and so forth. Those earlier versions also begin with a preface that trumpets the collection as "Actual stories from a variety of Travel Agents" rather than the politically repositioned "Actual stories provided by a retiring Washington, D.C. travel agent of 30+ years." Someone has been deliberately messing with this collection to impugn the guys and gals of Washington.
Because such lists are ever-changing, some of the earlier entries fail to appear in the "dumb Congresspeople" version, namely:
A secretary called in looking for hotel in Los Angeles. She gave me various names off a list, none of which I could find I finally had her fax me the list. To my surprise, it was a list of hotels in New Orleans, Louisiana. She thought the LA stood for Los Angeles, and that New Orleans was a suburb of L.A.
A woman called and said, " I need to fly to Pepsi-Cola on one of those computer planes." I asked if she meant to fly to Pensacola on a commuter plane. She said, "Yea, whatever."
A business man called and had a question about the documents he needed in order to fly to China. After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded him he needed a visa. "Oh no I don't, I've been to China many times and never had to have one of those." I double checked, and sure enough, his stay required a visa. When I told him this he said, "Look, I've been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express card."
I had someone who wanted to stay at the Bob Newhart Inn in Connecticut. When I explained that the inn was fictional, the customer became very irate and insisted, "I know it is real, I see them check in every week!"
[Note: The Newhart program that aired on CBS from 1982-90 was actually set in Vermont, and the inn shown in the program's opening shots was located there as well.)]
A woman called to make reservations, "I want to go from Chicago to Hippopotamus, New York"
The agent was at a loss for words. Finally, the agent said, "Are you sure that's the name of the town?"
"Yes, what flights do you have?" replied the customer.
After some searching, the agent came back with, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a Hippopotamus anywhere."
The customer retorted, "Oh don't be silly. Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!"
The agent scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, "You don't mean Buffalo, do you?"
"That's it! I knew it was a big animal!"
At any given moment, you'll find this list circulating with a number of confusing arrangements in which some entries are present but others have
been omitted. Similar lists such as the "Funny comments made on Welfare applications" and "Howlers culled from insurance claims forms" also tend to pick up and shed entries as they pass from one set of hands to another.
Lists such as these sometimes make their way into the newspapers, where they slip by the more gullible editors to get labelled as 'funny but true.' Though we won't dispute they're funny, the 'true' part has yet to be substantiated by anyone. Better to accept these as deliberate concoctions by unknown humorists than as verifiable proof that folks (especially Congresspeople and Senators apparently) are getting dumber all the time.
As to why such tales appeal, as one columnist said in 1998:
Like anything on the Web, they should be taken with a grain of salt. But they certainly ring true, and that grain of salt might well irritate wounds that many of us have suffered stumbling over ourselves during periods of trip-witlessness.
Besides, it's kind of comforting to be able to believe we're all that much smarter than our elected officials. (We'd never waste our time looking for Hippopotamus, NY, on a map, we say to ourselves smugly.) It's that little bit of barely suppressed self-satisfaction that makes such lists a hit with so many.
Barbara "hit manned" Mikkelson
Last updated: 17 December 2005
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