This is how glamourous my life is sometimes:
It’s been nearly two years since I started traveling quite a lot, and given the frequency of my air/train/taxi travel, they’ve been a relatively uneventful couple of years, transit-wise.
Until Wednesday.
The alarm rang very early just outside of Washington D.C., and two cups of coffee later I was nearly awake and ready to head for the airport.
Per my usual routine, I called down to the hotel’s reception desk and asked the front desk clerk to call for a taxi 20 minutes in advance. Usually, by the time I’ve made a final round through the suite (and almost always found something that I did, in fact, leave behind), turned out all the lights, and stumbled my way to the lobby, the taxi’s there.
Wednesday morning it took forty-five minutes for the taxi to arrive. After three calls from the front desk clerk. And the hotel is only a stone’s throw from the airport. I knew it was going to be a trying day of travel.
Arriving at Dulles airport, I found exactly what I’d expected – dozens of commuter flyers standing in line at nearly every airline desk. Usually, I fly Southwest – I like ’em, they’re inexpensive (relatively speaking), and they let me check two bags for free. But Southwest doesn’t fly everywhere all the time, so this day I was booked on a flight with ‘Airline X’. The line for Airline X was just as long as all the rest, and I had no choice but to add myself to the queue. After about five minutes of stand-time, a smiling lady asked me if I had my boarding pass. I said no. She told me that I had to go to a kiosk and print out my own boarding pass, then go and get back at the end of the line.
Sigh. (Southwest A-plus preferred customer access service gets me right to the front of the line, by the way, and prints my boarding passes for me. *Last Southwest plug, I promise*) This little series of maneuvers set me back another twenty minutes and six or eight spots in line.
You cannot conceive of how many hours I’ve spent standing in those snaking little lines constructed of silver poles and seat belts. Like the world’s slowest conga line, people never stand so close together as they do when they’re forced into these little lines. I am not ever happy about my personal space limitations during these line-standing periods. But I’m digressing…
After finally making it to the front of the line, the lady inspects my documents and accepts my bag, points me in the direction of the security area.
Thank goodness! – another long line. I was becoming nostalgic for the last one already.
As a frequent traveler, I ‘know how to do it’. I know how many little bins I need, never have anything in my pockets, and always put my laptop in a separate tray. I do not carry gels or aerosols. Forgive me this, but most everyone else seems to do it wrong. Every. Single. Time. On the rare occasion that I see someone unlacing his or her shoes while still three paces from the bin-stack, I know I’m watching another TSA pro. Wednesday held no such pros. The line moved excruciatingly slowly, and I admit to having to hold back the urge to shout at strangers (not for the last time that day).
Hurdle crossed, I re-laced my sneakers and proceeded to the departures screen. (“Never, ever trust your boarding pass” should be one of the ten commandments of airline travel.) Having confirmed my terminal and gate number, I proceeded to grab my usual beverage and healthy-breakfast-option-if-available and took a seat at the gate, thirty minutes before scheduled boarding time, 5:30 a.m.. Not too shabby.
The flight from Dulles to LaGuardia was short and bumpy. Oh, I didn’t mention the layover? Yeah. Layover. Moving on.
Once again, I checked the departures screen, found my gate, and found my way there. Ebook reader in hand, I tucked in for the hour-and-twenty-minute wait for boarding.
Then they announced a delay. Thirty minutes. No big deal.
Then the gate changed.
Twenty minutes later, they announced a second delay. Thirty more minutes. Still, no biggie.
Then, I swear on everything good and gentle, they changed the gate AGAIN.
Less than twenty minutes after that, they announced another delay. An hour. I’m now two hours behind schedule, and still at the airport. I start scrambling to rearrange my day’s schedule to accomodate the new arrival time in Pittsburgh (my final destination).
Near supposed-boarding time, there was an absolute glut of people around the gate door. The service desk line was twelve-deep and dozens of tired, irritated, late commuters were all standing way too close together. I was in the dead damn center of this mess when a young woman barreled her way through toward the front, shoving and being generally rude in the process. I don’t think she was feeling the vibe of the crowd.
You know what happens next, right? (No I didn’t give her a spanking, get your minds out of the gutter.)
This silly girl came back through, aggressive posture and zero manners, and tried to shove right past me..making my shoulder bag swing to the side.
So I elbowed her in the ribs. Hard. (Life is a contact sport, girlie, remember that.) The woman next to me took a step to the right and blocked her path in that way, too.
Yes, we had discussed this in advance. Women are dangerous like that.
Then they cancelled the flight.
I was beginning to feel a little like Tom Hanks’ character in that Terminal movie, perpetually walking past the same pretzel shop for weeks, months, maybe years on end. And I can’t even eat the damn pretzels.
We cancelled travelers were informed that the next flight was scheduled for 3pm, and that, as it was full, we would be 31 stand-by’s for the flight. The flight after that was at 5pm, effectively rendering my day absolutely void.
There was no way that I was going to make it to Pittsburgh.
I’ll spare you the detail on the arguments that took place with two Airline X representatives, and one floor supervisor, and with the first two telephone representatives. I will, however, credit Jason, Airline X telephone supervisor, who had the good sense, decency, and business acumen to issue me a return ticket to Las Vegas.
Via Detroit. But who’s counting.
So Pittsburgh, it wasn’t for a lack of trying that I missed you. And you’ll be happy to hear that I’m going to brave the freezing temps of January to make it up to you. (Ask anyone who knows…sacrificing my warmish-weather climes in winter is an act of love.)
One day. Twenty hours. Four airports. Absolutely nothing accomplished. And they still haven’t found my suitcase.
Next.
– Dana
Oh, Vengeful Wednesday! (A Day in the Life)
Visit my premium video, DVD, and products website at DanaKaneSpanks.com.
And you’re STILL not a fan of cursing? If this were ME my outrage would have been heard coast to coast. I prefer Southwest, also for the convenience you mentioned.
Sorry your Pittsburgh trip was messed up. I was HOPING you’d come here to spank some DECENT performance out of my Steelers. And that rude broad in line would have gotten the EXACT same treatment from me. I do that to people on the bus whenever they forget their ability to say, “Excuse me” or “I’m sorry.” I always say either of those if I’m guilty of bumping into someone.
Oh I feel for you Dana I remember those days (I flew every week)As they say been there done that…Came through Detroit and didn’t give me a call…..Pittsburgh you should know the cold weather and Dana don’t get along so that is a Big sacrifice for her ! Eric
Well I must confess a slightly nasty behavioral display of MY own which occurred shortly after I made my 1st post.
Long story short: Earlier this morning I left a VM to a company where several days ago I ordered a 4 box set of VERY hard to obtain Count Chocula Cereal as an XMAS gift.I received 2 separate boxes totaling 8 in all. One 4 box set is all I need. After much email/phone tag they agreed to send a return label for me. Well it STILL hadn’t arrived and I wanted to straighten this out ASAP.
My phone rang. I didn’t recognize the 800 number and when I spoke, I was terse and said, “If this is a telemarker, FORGET it!” Then I hung up. At least I didn’t swear. The phone rang instantly and it was the company where the order was placed. To my defense the caller ID # was different than the one on the box. :)
I called back and apologized for hanging up and said I was stressed over a family issue.
Oh. My. God. And people wonder why I’m phobic about airline travel. It’s not the flight. It’s stuff like this. So sorry! I hope that’s the last travel nightmare you have.
What You were in Detroit. I would have shown up at the airport just to help you relieve some tension lol.
That sounds like the day from heck and I usually do no swear either but on such days as this sometimes it does flow from my mouth like a river.
There’s an old joke (you probably know it):
A lady is checking in to one of the major airlines and asks the attendant, “could you please send this bag to Cleveland, this one to San Francisco and this one to Miami?” The attendant explains that there’s no way the airline can handle these requests and the lady shouts, “Why not? That’s what you did last time?”
SM
Wow I am truly sorry to hear of your Misadventure! Humm! Seems like Miss Chris has some stories like yours!
Living I Hawaii is nice because Hawaiian Airlines is the best and catching a Southwest for there is a smooth trip!
Not like a Naughty Boys trip across your Knee but that also very nice!
My, your day did get off to a bad start. I hope you had a good time during your brief stay in OUr Fair City and at least had a decent flight home. If I knew you were stuck at Dulles, I would have come over and bought you lunch. That’s my home base. Heck, for the right offer (you’ll give me HOW MANY? WITH WHAT????), I would have driven you to Pittsburg. ;)
I’m not nearly as frequent a flyer as I was before I retired, but I only had one experience like that at Dulles. It was an evening, 8:30 or so, flight to San Francisco back in the days when United, American, and TWA (remember TWA?) all flew that route, and all essentially at the same time. I was on the TWA flight because they had the better movie that day. There was a half hour delay posted when I arrived at the ticket counter. I thought about walking over to the American counter with my ticket (you could do that then) and taking their flight but decided that getting in half an hour late wasn’t worth the trouble to change. Well, the delay was extended, and by then the other flights had left. Finally, just after midnight, they canceled the flight. They were nice enough to pay for dinner while waiting for the flight, pay for a cab ride home and one back the next morning (there weren’t a lot of hotels around Dulles at the time), so I went back home, got a decent night’s sleep, took the cab back the next morning on TWA’s dime, and took the United flight just for spite.
I miss the original design of Dulles where you went to the ticket counter, got your boarding pass (hand-written, with a sticker with your seat number that the agent transferred from a sheet with the seat layout to the boarding pass), and then you got on a mobile lounge that took you directly to the door of the plane. No jetways, not escalators, no moving walkways, and if you made it to the mobile lounge (there were several runs of the lounges befor the the flight) you made it to the plane.
Before airlines figured out that people would pay to get into a faster security screening line, for a couple of years, they had a nearly secret “Black Diamond” security lane at Dulles for people who knew how to get through security quickly. That was never crowded and was always quick. Then it became an employee security check point. I got away with going through it a few times with my FAA badge, but then they insisted that I had to actually be doing FAA work at the airport, not just flying to where I was doing FAA work. Now I’m just a peon, but mostly it’s still pretty good there.
Hope your next DC trip will be soon and better than this one. I’ll have to keep my eye on your calendar. If you usually stay near Dulles when you travel to the DC area, I really must try to pay you a visit.
– Mike
I enjoyed the humor in the writing, if at your expense. The elbow strike was my favorite :)
Anthony
Some days you just wish you could go by train.
Glad that day is over for you and now you can look forward to a nice quiet week. Merry Christmas , hope you have a wonderful day. Isabella.
Ahh, thank you all for the sympathy…I needed that.
Honestly, the travel usually isn’t all that terrible, which is exactly why I decided to share this story.
It’s anomalous, Erica, I promise!
Big Hugs,
Dana
Air travel used to be fun and exciting in the 1980’s and early 1990’s.
It used to be special. Now it is what it is.
Sometimes the best and worst possible things happened and it actually helps to restore faith in people.
We flew to New England about nine years ago for Christmas, a young family of five. Some of the worst possible things happened st Reagan National with cancellations, lines, boarding cards, security checks, etc. However other people saw our distress and really helped us, letting us cut in front of them, etc. A Washington DC
Police Officer seeing our distress picked up a bunch of our bags and walked them onto the plane for us and made sure that we made the flight to Boston Ma.