Loppi and Me

Would you name a kid Loppi? I wouldn't either, but that's the name of my new best friend, who is bright red and incredibly dumb.

Chapter One:

My kids were teasing me that the only thing I know how to buy from the Internet is books. "I'll show them," I say, having just heard that I need to be in Okinawa ten days from now. "I'll buy my tickets from the Internet."

I call up the Japan Airlines homepage and get to work. It has to be JAL because, thanks to my dearly departed father in law, we own a few pieces of JAL stock and they send us a stockholders discount coupon every spring.

Two hours later, I've reserved both outbound and inbound seats. Two hours! With a homepage that simple to use (mwaahahahaaa), no wonder the airline is teetering on bankruptcy. I print off the record, and lo and behold, it says on the bottom of the page "Please buy your ticket as soon as possible."

Buy your ticket? Isn't that what I just did?

Here, the wise say, "No, you didn't. You just reserved a seat."

Silly me.

But the thing is, it says buy it, but doesn't say where. The whole reason I am using the computer--besides showing off for my kids--is that there are no longer any travel agencies here in town.

My son takes pity on me and dials the free dial number for JAL. Twenty minutes' of dorky music later he is connected, and the voice on the other end of the line tells him to go to the convenience store and buy the tickets from Loppi.

Loppi?

"The machine," she says. "It's called Loppi. You buy the ticket from Loppi."


Chapter Two:

My son, my daughter in law, and my husband who doesn't believe in machines named Loppi join me in walking to our local convenience store. Never mind that it's already dark, and it's starting to rain.

Son of a gun! There is a red vending machine--like the kind that used to sell jawbreakers in Woolworth's Five and Dime--set up in a corner next to the cigarettes. It is labeled Loppi in bright, cartoony letters.

Loppi is real! Loppi exists! Loppi will give me my tickets.

We gather round and start punching in information. Then comes the test. We thump the final button, and Loppi's red face lights up with a flashing message: You cannot buy a ticket.

What?!


Chapter Three, the sordid conclusion:

We step away from Loppi to dial JAL information again. We can hear the tinny wait-a-moment music leaking out of the phone as we huddle outside in the rain, since the store forbids cell phones inside. The voice of JAL finally picks up.

"Oh, of course you can't buy your ticket from Loppi," she says. "If you are using a stockholders discount certificate, you have to go to a travel agency."

Duh... If I had access to a travel agency, why would I have gotten tangled up in their maze-like home page?


Epilogue:

(you are not going to believe this)

That was last night. Today, my daughter in law and I get on the train and ride to a city that has travel agencies. The clerk says, very quietly so no other customers can hear, "You can get a better deal if you don't use your stockholders discount coupon."

And she sells me outbound and inbound tickets in a little under 5 minutes, $70 cheaper than the Internet version.

Loppi! Give a machine a dumb name and it will perform dumb tricks.