Last night was one of the more frustrating travel experiences, not bad, just frustrating. We were scheduled to leave the hospital at 4:00pm but didn't get out of a meeting until at least 4:20. Every minute that ticked by increased my anxiety!
When we finally did get out my NeverLost (Hertz's GPS system) said it would take 2 hours to get to Boston which would put us at the Hertz drop-off at 6:30, not enough time to get to my 7pm flight.
So I spent the whole 90 minutes speeding and anxious but did get to Hertz around 6pm. Fortunately I'm able to just park my car and run, they'll email me my receipt. We took a bus to the terminal only to find they closed one of their security check points and there were extremely long lines to get to the gates.
I was actually about to get through security somewhat quickly because they were only letting people through with flights at 7pm or earlier. Other people were not so happy about this and started to get in the faces of the TSA personnel (fight #1).
When I did finally get through I had just enough time to get to my gate at the end of the hall before they started boarding. But while I was fast-walking I was able to watch (fight #2) someone open a closed gate door and yell to the US Airways gate agent to "Check his damn bags". The agent called security.
When I did get to my gate I found out they were boarding by rows from back to front instead of zones. I was zone 2!! and seated in Row 6!! When I did finally get on the plane there was no where to put my luggage. So they made those of us with luggage go all the way to the back of the plane while we waited for everyone else to get situated so that we could then get off the plane and check our luggage. While we were waiting for other people to clear out of the guys I was with started complaining about the entire airline industry to the flight attendant.
The poor flight attendant! Clearly she can't fix an entire industry! Even if she does agree that it would be better for people to be allowed to check their luggage for free and leave space available in the overheads!
Apparently they had just gotten off a flight that had been delayed by 4 hours! They wanted to offer the passengers cookies just a token. They need expressed, written permission from a pilot to even give out cookies!! They can't even open the box containing the cookies. It's locked and wrapped in tape which they have no scissors to cut - another thing they need to get from the pilot. And when you finally do get to the cookies they are wrapped in plastic with a form and large warning sign letting the attendants know they can't open it without the permission I mentioned earlier. That's an awful lot of work for approximately 60 calories! I commiserated with her and then had to go check my luggage.
The rest of the flight was fine, fairly uneventful, just how I like them! Except my new Flight Attendant friend came over at one point to thank me for being accommodating and then offered me complimentary wine. Naturally I accepted and she gave me 2 (little) bottles! (Does anyone else find it ironic that they can't give out cookies but can give me 2 bottles of wine?).
Finally I got to DCA, where apparently they got 3 inches of snow! I totally missed that memo. After waiting for my luggage I got out to the taxi stand and was at the front of the line when a taxi pulled up, cutting another taxi off. The driver got out of the car and started asking people who was going to DC. The Taxi Stand Attendant got upset and told him to get back in his car, causing the driver to fly off the handle (flight #3) and start yelling at the attendant, including some not very nice names which will not be repeated here! The problem was prolonged because now no one wanted to get in that cab!
Anyway. I got home. I got some Thai food. A lot of anxiety but everything worked out.
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