Bride of Travel Curse
Jun. 13th, 2009 03:52 pmWhen I said, after the last couple trips went really smoothly, that I wished something would happen just so I'd stop waiting for the other shoe to drop, yesterday was not what I had in mind.
I left my dorm at 7.30, and got to the airport at 10.00. My flight was scheduled to leave at 2.00. No problems so far - despite the giant pile of luggage the train trip was fine, I didn't even fall down the stairs getting off. It was nice not feeling rushed about making my connections, since I was so early. I did get yelled at by one the train attendents because I accidentally grabbed my ticket receipt out of the machine and not my actual ticket, but she didn't throw me off, so whatever. Anyway, after I checked my luggage, I fought a place to sit close to an outlet and watched SGA for a few hours before I went to get lunch and go find my gate. Here is where the drama starts.
I check the flight board t make sure I'm going to the right gate, and it says my flight's been delayed for an hour. That's just great. So now I've got two hours to sit around the terminal instead of one, and it's all full up because there's a different flight waiting to board, so I can't plug my computer anywhere. So I read for awhile, I listen to Star Trek on my mp3 player, I call everyone I know to bitch about how bored I am. I also start to get kind of worried - my flight to Albuquerque is scheduled to start boarding twenty minutes after my flight from SF gets in. And I really hate being the person they are holding the plane for, it's so embarrassing.
So halfway through a conversation with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
colourofsaying , the guy at the counter gets on the intercom and makes an announcement: the flight's been delayed again and won't be leaving til 3.30. SF's fogged in, or something, and our plane is still in Los Angelos because of grounding orders. Everyone who has a connecting flight, get in line at the counter so they can figure out what the fuck to do with you.
I'm not going to blame Southwest for the delays, since they really can't help fog, but I'm still pissed off at them for how they handled this part. It was an enormous clusterfuck - they had a line going all the way across the terminal, and one (INCREDIBLY SLOW) guy at the desk, trying to take care of everyone. I was in line for over an hour without moving ten feet. I have to thankcolourofsaying profusely, for staying on the phone with me talking about Due South and is probably the sole reason I didn't start throat-punching everyone ahead of me in line.
Five minutes before I got to the head of the line, they got on the intercom again and told everyone flying to Albuqueque to sit down, they were fine, there were two more connecting flights after the one we were supposed to be on. Also the flight was delayed again.
By 4.30 we were finally on the plane and in the air. I got lucky enough to sit next to a nice young couple who didn't mind that I had a metric fuckton of luggage - btw, I also hate the way SW boards their planes, where you don't have an assigned seat, you just fill in the first empty seat you find. It's mind-bogglingly stupid, since what happens is that everyone takes either a window seat or an aisle seat, and you end up with 50 middle seats that are now impossible to get into.
Anyway, here is where this passes from regular bad airport luck to sheer farce.
Halfway through the flight, a teenage boy keeled over in the bathroom.
I still don't know entirely what happened, having pieced it together from whispered conversations with my seatmates and overhearing the flight attendents talking. But more or less, the teenager sitting in the seat of me felt weird and went to the bathroom. His brother went after him; he said he couldn't see or hear and he passed out. Also his blood pressure was really low or something? But regardless, cue medical emergency. The brother is freaking out. The flight attendents are freaking out. They keep getting on the intercom and telling everyone else NOT to freak out. They're running back and forth, getting first aid kits and oxygen and some guy from the middle of the plane who's a doctor. At some point, they actually put an IV into this kid. Everyone in the last four rows (including me) is craning around, trying to see what's going on, or whispering to each other to see if someone else knows what's going on. I am very quietly spazzing out, partly because I thought a kid was about to die five feet away from me, partly because the flight was turbulent as fuck, partly because I had just gotten to the destruction of the Kelvin scene when I turned my mp3 player off for maximum gossip.
In the end the kid was okay - although he probably spent last night in the hospital and I doubt his mom is ever going to let him fly alone again - but we were delayed further at the gate because they had to get him off the plane before we could deboard. At this point it's about 6.20. My flight to Albuquerque was supposed to leave at 4.30. So they've transferred all of us to a flight that leaves at 7.00 - which means it starts boarding in ten minutes. And of course it is in a completely different part of the airport miles from where my flight gets in.
Cue madcap dash through what has to be one of the most confusingly laid-out airports I have ever had the misfortune to pass through. It's not hard to guess what happened then: my flight from Phoenix to Albuquerque was delayed. Of fucking course.
I was about ready to cry, or maybe just fall over and die right there in the airport, but luckily this is the part with the cute Marine. This girl standing near me while I got my new boarding pass from the desk overheard me ranting on the phone about my trip, and struck up a conversation asking me what happened. Then she said she was flying from San Diego, and the guy in the Marine uniform next to her said he was flying from there too and started talking to us. It turned out she was in the Navy, so they had a lot to talk about, and I threw in my two cents whenever I didn't feel like a total loser jerk for not being a soldier. But they were both about my age, and he was absolutely adorable - very cute looking and sweet, and he was from NC so he had a southern accent, and he was so utterly polite. When we got on the plane he offered to help me with my bags, and when I said I could handle it he ended carrying the suitcase of the woman in front of him, who really couldn't.
And like I said last night, while I was talking to them, the flight at our gate deboarded and one of the guys getting off walked into me, and he looked exactly like Rahm Emmanuel, to the point where I tried to get online last night and confirm that Rahm really wasn't in Phoenix for some bizarre reason.
And that is how I got from San Francisco to Albuquerque in fifteen hours, and why I still think I'm under some sort of curse when it comes to travelling.
Oh, and one of my jars in my luggage leaked during the trip, so all my pants are now streaked with purple dye.
I left my dorm at 7.30, and got to the airport at 10.00. My flight was scheduled to leave at 2.00. No problems so far - despite the giant pile of luggage the train trip was fine, I didn't even fall down the stairs getting off. It was nice not feeling rushed about making my connections, since I was so early. I did get yelled at by one the train attendents because I accidentally grabbed my ticket receipt out of the machine and not my actual ticket, but she didn't throw me off, so whatever. Anyway, after I checked my luggage, I fought a place to sit close to an outlet and watched SGA for a few hours before I went to get lunch and go find my gate. Here is where the drama starts.
I check the flight board t make sure I'm going to the right gate, and it says my flight's been delayed for an hour. That's just great. So now I've got two hours to sit around the terminal instead of one, and it's all full up because there's a different flight waiting to board, so I can't plug my computer anywhere. So I read for awhile, I listen to Star Trek on my mp3 player, I call everyone I know to bitch about how bored I am. I also start to get kind of worried - my flight to Albuquerque is scheduled to start boarding twenty minutes after my flight from SF gets in. And I really hate being the person they are holding the plane for, it's so embarrassing.
So halfway through a conversation with
colourofsaying , the guy at the counter gets on the intercom and makes an announcement: the flight's been delayed again and won't be leaving til 3.30. SF's fogged in, or something, and our plane is still in Los Angelos because of grounding orders. Everyone who has a connecting flight, get in line at the counter so they can figure out what the fuck to do with you. I'm not going to blame Southwest for the delays, since they really can't help fog, but I'm still pissed off at them for how they handled this part. It was an enormous clusterfuck - they had a line going all the way across the terminal, and one (INCREDIBLY SLOW) guy at the desk, trying to take care of everyone. I was in line for over an hour without moving ten feet. I have to thank
colourofsaying profusely, for staying on the phone with me talking about Due South and is probably the sole reason I didn't start throat-punching everyone ahead of me in line. Five minutes before I got to the head of the line, they got on the intercom again and told everyone flying to Albuqueque to sit down, they were fine, there were two more connecting flights after the one we were supposed to be on. Also the flight was delayed again.
By 4.30 we were finally on the plane and in the air. I got lucky enough to sit next to a nice young couple who didn't mind that I had a metric fuckton of luggage - btw, I also hate the way SW boards their planes, where you don't have an assigned seat, you just fill in the first empty seat you find. It's mind-bogglingly stupid, since what happens is that everyone takes either a window seat or an aisle seat, and you end up with 50 middle seats that are now impossible to get into.
Anyway, here is where this passes from regular bad airport luck to sheer farce.
Halfway through the flight, a teenage boy keeled over in the bathroom.
I still don't know entirely what happened, having pieced it together from whispered conversations with my seatmates and overhearing the flight attendents talking. But more or less, the teenager sitting in the seat of me felt weird and went to the bathroom. His brother went after him; he said he couldn't see or hear and he passed out. Also his blood pressure was really low or something? But regardless, cue medical emergency. The brother is freaking out. The flight attendents are freaking out. They keep getting on the intercom and telling everyone else NOT to freak out. They're running back and forth, getting first aid kits and oxygen and some guy from the middle of the plane who's a doctor. At some point, they actually put an IV into this kid. Everyone in the last four rows (including me) is craning around, trying to see what's going on, or whispering to each other to see if someone else knows what's going on. I am very quietly spazzing out, partly because I thought a kid was about to die five feet away from me, partly because the flight was turbulent as fuck, partly because I had just gotten to the destruction of the Kelvin scene when I turned my mp3 player off for maximum gossip.
In the end the kid was okay - although he probably spent last night in the hospital and I doubt his mom is ever going to let him fly alone again - but we were delayed further at the gate because they had to get him off the plane before we could deboard. At this point it's about 6.20. My flight to Albuquerque was supposed to leave at 4.30. So they've transferred all of us to a flight that leaves at 7.00 - which means it starts boarding in ten minutes. And of course it is in a completely different part of the airport miles from where my flight gets in.
Cue madcap dash through what has to be one of the most confusingly laid-out airports I have ever had the misfortune to pass through. It's not hard to guess what happened then: my flight from Phoenix to Albuquerque was delayed. Of fucking course.
I was about ready to cry, or maybe just fall over and die right there in the airport, but luckily this is the part with the cute Marine. This girl standing near me while I got my new boarding pass from the desk overheard me ranting on the phone about my trip, and struck up a conversation asking me what happened. Then she said she was flying from San Diego, and the guy in the Marine uniform next to her said he was flying from there too and started talking to us. It turned out she was in the Navy, so they had a lot to talk about, and I threw in my two cents whenever I didn't feel like a total loser jerk for not being a soldier. But they were both about my age, and he was absolutely adorable - very cute looking and sweet, and he was from NC so he had a southern accent, and he was so utterly polite. When we got on the plane he offered to help me with my bags, and when I said I could handle it he ended carrying the suitcase of the woman in front of him, who really couldn't.
And like I said last night, while I was talking to them, the flight at our gate deboarded and one of the guys getting off walked into me, and he looked exactly like Rahm Emmanuel, to the point where I tried to get online last night and confirm that Rahm really wasn't in Phoenix for some bizarre reason.
And that is how I got from San Francisco to Albuquerque in fifteen hours, and why I still think I'm under some sort of curse when it comes to travelling.
Oh, and one of my jars in my luggage leaked during the trip, so all my pants are now streaked with purple dye.