(Source -- ok maybe not this big of a mess, but you get the idea)
So why am I bringing this up? Well I was having a blast back home in California last week. And I think the travel gods understood my apprehension to go back to Arizona on Sunday. It all started with a restroom trip.... that's a weird way to begin a story, isn't it? Anyways I was in the restroom at a college basketball game and my phone fell out of my pocket, somehow on camera mode, and snapped a photo of me doing my thing. What a creep. I deleted it immediately. That would have been funny to keep around, but sooooo not worth it. We ended up leaving the game in the second half because it got kind of out of hand and I needed to eat before heading to the airport.
At lunch, my dad suggested I check my flight status. Southwest's website said my 7:05 p.m. departure would be delayed 20 minutes. Seeing as how we live fairly close to the Oakland Airport, my dad decided we didn't need to leave as early as I'd originally planned. I kept checking often, nervous that I'd miss my flight, only to find a delay as long as 45 minutes. So the new time we aimed to leave for the airport would put me there about 45 minutes before my flight would have left normally. And I was checking in a bag....
As we're packing up the car, I checked one more time and then the flight status changed to ON TIME.
(Source)
I was going to have to mad dash to the airport if I wanted to be there on time! There is also a new policy that if you're checking a bag, you have to arrive more than 30 minutes prior to departure. This was going to be cutting it close...
As we get into the car it starts pouring. And then on the freeway, not more than 15 minutes away from the airport, a crash happened just ahead of us. Out of nowhere this cop car comes racing through all lanes, halting five lanes of traffic. We were at a dead stop, realizing that one of the cars had spun around to face the wrong direction in the shoulder. While I hoped they were ok, I wanted to get moving! The policeman ran out of the car, checked up on everyone, then pulled off to the side to only block two lanes. Slowly but surely, traffic resumed and we were back on the road. I still had about 55 minutes before my flight was supposed to leave.
By the time I arrived, I was relieved to see that Southwest had an express bag check lane with no one in it. I printed out my boarding pass at home -- after forgetting to do so and missed out on being in the "A" group -- so I didn't have to bother with the check-in line that pretty much went out the door. Except, I was in that line for about six minutes before realizing that the empty lane was for me! Crossing my fingers, I plopped my suitcase on the scale and was relieved to find out it wasn't 50 pounds... just 48. Oh well, it was under and I didn't have to pay an excess weight fee. Off I scurried to security.
I had to wait in the security line unnecessarily long because some dumb jock in front of me was probably high. It was this blond kid wearing a USC water polo shirt holding up his ID at the beginning of the security line. Then he flipped out and couldn't find his boarding pass. Instead of asking him to stand to the side while he rifled through his garbage bag -- yes, that was his carry-on -- they waited and waited. But all of a sudden he realized he hadn't even checked in yet and didn't even have a boarding pass. Silly boy... So he exited the security area and went back to the desk for his airline, while I passed right on through to the X-ray belt. I was waiting in line, all my belongings properly placed on the belt when a TSA attendant tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to come with them. Um, I wasn't doing anything wrong, at least I didn't think so. My shoes and jacket were off, I wasn't wearing jewelry and I was dressed pretty nicely.
Instead of going through the normal metal detector thing, I was randomly selected to test out the new TSA box. Although I've heard a lot of jokes about it in the media, I didn't have a clue what to do other than walk through it. But she stopped me. Literally, grabbed me while I was walking through and made me put my feet on the two yellow spaces facing outward in the box. I was instructed to lift my arms over my head, feeling awkward while the X-ray did its thing. It felt like an abnormally long period of time. It made a tiny ding at the end, prompting the TSA officer to brush both sides of my body and then send me on my way. I felt weird. Especially since my luggage had backed up and everyone on the other side was waiting for me to claim my belongings.
With about 20 minutes to go, I made it to my gate only to find the flight was delayed 20 minutes again. No big deal, I'll just text people and play games on my phone, which by the way, was dying. All of a sudden this dude sits next to me and rips one. Like majorly passes gas for me and everyone in a 30-mile radius to smell. I wanted to vomit. Instead, I got up and walked around to pass the time. When I finally sat back down elsewhere, I plopped down next to a couple discussing their eHarmony accounts. The woman apparently cancelled her subscription, but was still getting emails. Her boyfriend, financé?, the guy she met on eHarmony still hadn't deleted his account and this was causing some major drama. I tuned it out, because over the PA they were announcing that our plane still hadn't arrived and even after the 20 minute delay, we were still scheduled to depart in three minutes. No way we were leaving 20 minutes late. It ended up being 40 minutes after all.
But of course, while I was listening, I saw Farty McGee walking around crop dusting on the other side of the gate. Good thing I moved seats. When our plane finally arrived it was about 7:30 p.m. and we still had to board. I eventually made it home to Phoenix at about 11 p.m., when you factor in the one-hour time zone difference between Arizona and California. As much as I reallllllly miss California and all the people in it, I'm glad I'm not flying back in the foreseeable future.
