remind me to never do that again (or, beth's 30th birthday)

Yesterday was Beth's 30th birthday (happy birthday, Beth)! Of course, I didn't want to miss my little sister's 30th birthday party, so I flew in to make it. Remind me never to do that again. At least via the route I took yesterday.

Two weeks ago, I was online looking to see if I could get a good deal from my college town to my hometown for Dennis & Cathy's wedding (which was a blast, by the way). They were quoting me $600 and up, and it just wasn't worth it. But the deal for two weeks wasn't bad--$250 with fees and taxes. But there were two catches: (1) it wasn't from my college town--it was from an international airport three hours away; and (2) there was a connecting flight. I figured it was worth it, because the hours spent on the plane were hours that I could spend studying or grading vs. driving and driving and driving (and not studying and grading and not studying and grading and...well, you get the picture). I booked the flight.

The drive to the airport was delightful. I passed a huge wind farm, which was a sight to see. I looked for a landmark after it so I wouldn't forget to look for the windfarm again on the way back, and there was a dinky little water tower with a neon sign pointing to a dinking little building. The sign said "C-A-S-I-N-O." (Each letter blinked on one at a time until the entire word was lit up, then the entire sign went dark and the process started again.) That, I will remember. Things were going swimmingly (hee hee, I can't believe I just used that word) until my exit, when I got a little mixed up and ended up getting back on the freeway going the wrong way. "Oh well," I thought, "I'll just get off at the first exit, turn around, and get back on again." Let me just say that, by this time, my YOU NEED GAS light was on in my car. Since it was (is) supposed to only be zero degrees the next day (today) I thought I better get some before leaving my car parked in a parking garage.

I got off the freeway on the first exit. Just as I started to turn onto the entrance ramp for the direction I should have been going (back to the parking garage), I saw a cop on a motorcycle with his lights flashing at the end of the ramp. He wasn't letting anyone onto the freeway. I went straight instead, figuring I would just turn left and "follow" the freeway the mile or two back to where I should be. But there wasn't anywhere you could "just turn left" and there wasn't a road that followed the freeway. I had to turn around and head back toward the freeway. The entire time, I was looking for a gas station, but there wasn't a one in sight--just office parks and empty fields. At least by the time I got back to the freeway, the cop was gone and I was able to get on. And I didn't make the same mistake on the exit, either, heading for the parking garage instead.

Now you'd think that by the freeway exit for a major international airport there'd be gas stations galore with prices $0.50 more/gallon than anywhere else. That's how it is in my hometown, and that's how I expected it to be here. But there wasn't a gas station in sight. Since I only had an hour until my flight took off, I went ahead and parked--on the top floor of a four-tier parking garage--for $44 for four days. They even have a free shuttle to the airport, and off we went.

I got my boarding pass from one of those machine thing-a-ma-jiggies. Then I stood in line for the security checkpoint. You'd think none of these people have ever flown before. They were waiting until the last minute (i.e., "Oh, it's my turn!") to take off their coats, belts, and shoes and to pull their ziploc baggie full of toiletries out of their bags. I stood in line for nearly half an hour (I guess not bad, but aggravating) wishing they would go through the line and say, "You--you're ready--come on up and pass all of these nitwits who don't realize that if you were all ready when you got to the head of the line it would go much faster," but they didn't. And as I hurriedly walked through the airport and turned the corner onto my gate, I heard, "Last call for Rhonda (okay, they used my last name, but whatever), Jones, and Smith for flight whatever-number-it-was." I walked on board and made two people move so I could get to my window seat, finally settled in. "Whew," I thought. It won't be so close in Chicago." Wrong.

Sitting on the runway, waiting to take off, the engines suddenly went dead. "I'm sorry, folks," the captain's voice said, "but the airport we're flying into has cancelled all incoming flights due to high winds. We'll update you in twenty minutes or so." I knew it. At that moment, I knew I should have just made the nine-hour drive home. We sat on the runway (or just off of it, since we had to move to let other planes go) for an hour before leaving. The one advantage: on that flight I got a lot of grading done. But when we touched down...

I got off, expecting to see signs to show me where to go. But I didn't, so I asked the first idle airport security worker I saw. "American Airlines? You need terminal three. We're in terminal one." He told me how to get there, and I took off--with only forty minutes until my next flight was to leave. I went up and down stairs, onto a train, and finally found the ticketing area (he failed to tell me that I could get a boarding pass/check in for the flight at the gate, thereby bypassing the security checkpoint, but at this airport there was not a wait--thank God). I got to a little machine thing-a-ma-jiggy and--it said I was too late to check in for my on-time flight and wouldn't give me a boarding pass or get a seat on a later flight. The attendant told me to go to the first class line and ask for one, and finally I got a woman to help me. By this time, my flight was to leave in fifteen minutes. I didn't even bother putting my shoes back on. Instead, I ran through the airport, embarrassed about how ridiculous I must look and how slow my "running" pace is, only to arrive at the gate with the desk darkened and the door closed. I dramatically asked a pilot coming out of a door next to it, "Do you know how I get on that plane?" He looked at me like I was nuts. Then a woman standing behind me said, "For your hometown (naming it, of course)?" "Yes," I replied. "We haven't boarded yet," she said. "It was supposed to start boarding a while ago, but they haven't told us anything yet." I went red in the face, thanked her, and found a restroom to use. I was shaking. There was so much adrenaline pumping through my body that I felt sick, and I was angry at how sweaty and ridiculous I must look (and have sounded) and all for nothing. They could have updated the records and said it, too, was delayed for an hour.

So that's the part that I want you to remind me never to do again. Just let me, please, pay the extra money and fly out of my college town straight to my hometown if there is ever a need to fly again. No more connecting flights. I was so stressed, hungry, and tired by the time I was walking outside waiting for Al to pick me up, that I started yelling when I saw him drive right by me toward the upper level of the arrivals instead of the lower, which I had forgotten about and not specified. He was just following the signs, and I was mean, and I feel horrible still (although he did accept my apologies).

Beth's party was fun, though, and after four hours, I was finally relaxed. That's what you see in this photo of Michelle, Beth and I at the party. Happy birthday, Beth! I'd do your party again, just not the flying part!