Air Travel Fun

Let's say that you and the Girl (yes, there is a Girl, which is quite good in its own right, but that's not the main thrust of this particular post) decide to go on a week-long vacation to San Francisco. Not a bad idea, really. You take plenty of days off, but you don't typically take more than a couple at a time (aside from around the winter holidays). So a week-long trip will probably be good for you. Besides, you could really go for some of that cool weather that the Bay Area serves up this time of year. You work the morning of your departure to get a couple of things wrapped up before you go. Naturally, a decently large problem crops up in the afternoon, and you have to rush to get packed and out the door somewhere close to on time, albeit definitely late. (The Girl is quite patient with you because she didn't expect you to be ready on time in the first place. You should really work on that.)

So you manage to work your way through traffic and get to the airport with plenty of time to spare. You check your bags, cruise through security, and relax before takeoff. You board and even take off pretty much on time. You start thinking that maybe it's good that you got that problem out of the way this afternoon so that your trip can go smoothly. Just a little hop from BWI to ATL, then a not-too-long layover before flying out to OAK. But then the captain comes on and says that we're going to hold here for a few minutes because of a thunderstorm that is apparently attracted to the Atlanta airport. You chuckle as you think that ATL is to thunderstorms as trailer parks are to tornadoes. After about 15 minutes, the pilot informs you that the thunderstorm is not budging, and we're going to cruise on over to Greenville to get some fuel and lie low until things pass. Now you're concerned, but there's nothing you can do about it. Of course, this would all be better if the little kid sitting behind you weren't alternately kicking and slapping your seat, except for when he is slamming his table tray up and down or screaming. Dirty looks to his row prove ineffective, as the adults he is traveling with are able to sleep through the whole affair. You consider that they might be amused by it. Anyway, there's nothing you can do.

When you do finally get into ATL at around 10:30 PM (about 2 hours after you were supposed to arrive and a solid hour after your connecting flight was supposed to depart) the agent at the top of the jetway tells you that your flight is gone and you need to go to the ticket counter at the center of the terminal. So you head that way, discussing with the Girl how thunderstorms seem to affect departing aircraft much differently than they do arriving aircraft. (Unless you are on the departing aircraft, in which case they never take off.) Arriving near the ticket counter you were instructed to go to, a helpful gate agent tells you that you need to go to the ticket counter in terminal A or B. Mildly put off, you ask, "OK, when I get to terminal A or B, are they going to tell me I need to go somewhere else?" The helpful guy tells you that they shouldn't because they are open. So you get on the tram/monorail thingy and cruise to terminal B. Since not many people get off there, you and the Girl head up to a not-too-long line at the ticket counter, and you leave here to relieve the bladder that has been full since before you landed in Greenville. When you return, the Girl is laughing sardonically and everyone is leaving. "We have to go to terminal A," she tells you. "They're closing here because the fumes from the construction are bothering them."

A bit peeved, you trudge back to the tram/monorail thingy and get in a very long line at the ticket counter in terminal A. They run people through shockingly quickly, scanning boarding passes and telling you that you are booked on a 9:00 AM flight the next morning. They give you a hotel voucher, a meal voucher, and an overnight kit because you are not getting your checked bags back in the interim. The Girl is relieved that she didn't check her toiletries, as she uses some highly sophisticated bathroom products and implements that you don't really understand. She is pretty happy that the overnight kit includes a t-shirt for sleeping purposes, though. You quietly wish that they included some clean underwear because you know you're not going to use the included packet of detergent to hand wash anything. But there's nothing you can do about it, really. You take what you can get. After a 45-minute wait, you get a shuttle to the hotel, check in, and hunker down for 3 - 3.5 hours of sleep before you get up to try again the next day, secure in the knowledge that things will go much more smoothly tomorrow.

[Continued in the next post]