Out came Colin, a man so angry all his hair had literally fallen out. He was so aggressive I can only assume he had accidentally inserted something sharp into somewhere private and been unable to remove it before he came to work. He was definitely a Middle Gimp.4 I know this as Vacant and Not That Bright were clearly quite scared of him, and he can’t have been a Big Cheese as he was talking directly to customers and we all know from The News that no-one in Big Cheese management at Ryanair has ever seen, let alone spoken to, an actual customer.

Middle Gimp had clearly listened hard at Ryanair Middle Gimp School, as he managed to take two perfectly calm and sane adults and in a matter of seconds reduce them to angry people considering violence.

“Check in opens 3 hours before the flight” he barked repeatedly as if it was the answer to every question in life. We tried to ask Middle Gimp direct questions about why it was necessary for us to miss the flight because the Child had forgotten to do his job, and Vacant had forgotten to do hers.

“Why is this our fault, and why should we miss the flight because of errors Ryanair staff have just admitted?”

“Check in opens three hours before the flight.”

“Do you acknowledge we have just cause for complaint as we tried to do the right thing and the only reason we are not on the plane is because of communication failures between Ryanair Staff?”

“Check in opens three hours before the flight.”

“What colour are my trousers?”

“Check in opens three hours before the flight.”

“Do you think economic sanctions on Russia will diffuse the escalating situation in Ukraine?”

“Check in opens three hours before the flight.”

“Were Man Utd right to fire David Moyes?”5

“Check in opens three hours before the flight”

“My tinkle6 is hurting, could you take a look if I promise not to tell anyone?”

“Check in opens three hours before the flight”

Middle Gimp then conferred with Vacant and Not That Bright, and agreed that this was all our fault as we should have noticed that Child had made an error and we should have called the flight ourselves to assist Vacant in doing her job because she was clearly busy being, well,…… Middle Gimp then insisted we go to the Customer Shouting Desk, as he was definitely not going to do anything else. This was handy as the queue was very long so that by the time we would reach the front the plane would be half way to Bratislava and the problem would be solved.

We waited patiently in line as customer after customer stood at the desk to hear the same song;

“No, no, I can’t do that, no, there are no Middle Gimps available, no, no, sorry, no, give me all your money.”

We got to the Customer Shouting Desk and explained our plight to the lady there (who was actually very nice and clearly should not be working for Ryanair as a result). She apologised but explained that Middle Gimp had finished being angry for the day and had returned to his padded cage, and that there were no other Middle Gimps around. We would have to book in to the flight for the next day and we would have to pay £110 each to change the ticket. When she tried to re-book the flight she said that the flight we had tried to get was actually delayed by 1 hour and still at the airport, and that what we should do is run to the gate with all our luggage, she would call through and they would check our bags into the hold at the gate. We ran as fast as we could, which is not very fast because I am fat,7 to security to do as instructed. When we got there, security advised us that because our flight should have left, even though it hadn’t, the ticket machine would not open the barrier for us and we would need to return to the Customer Shouting Desk.

We waited patiently in the very long queue yet again for about 40 minutes to discover the nice lady had also gone home now so we had to explain the whole thing again to a new lady that looked like all the joy had been removed from her life at birth. She recited the Ryanair customer services song with a sterling level of apathy and dreariness, I am surprised she could muster the will just to breathe and stay alive.

“No, no, I can’t do that, no, there are no Middle Gimps available, no, no, sorry, no, give me all your money.”