ling | Could have flown to China (Reply)

Our trip to Southern California had to end, sadly and Jenn wonderfully picked us up on Monday morning and drove us to LAX. We arrived about two hours before our flight because we’ve had issues checking in our bags. It’s not that we have anything troubling in our luggage. It’s just that sometimes the line to do so is over an hour long. And then there was the security line to get through.

I can’t remember if there was a line or not since this happened fully a whole month earlier and I am a slacker that did not take notes. It doesn’t matter really whether there was a line or not. In fact, it wouldn’t have mattered if we were late because our flight was delayed an hour an a half.

Sadly, we did not have any Porto’s to tie us over. But I did have my phone which has the internets and we also spent some time eating airport food. Yaay airport food. Practically everything is microwaved!

When 1:30pm finally rolled around, we all boarded the plane and up we went. I wasn’t overly worried about the delay because the layover in DFW was kind of a big gap. If we ran, we could get onto the second leg of our flight.

Except that pretty much the moment we went up, the Captain told us that we had to stop in Tucson, AZ at an airport that’s pretty much been abandoned. He said that even though we could make it to DFW, there would be nowhere to put us. So get off the plane and come back in like THREE HOURS. The F*ck.

If you’ve ever been to the Tucson airport, you know it’s pretty much decommissioned. Like nothing is there. Nobody. It’s like the Langoliers it’s so empty.

The Hubs went for a walk while I replied to some work email and set up some meetings for the next day. The Hubs came back in record time. He’s a fast walker, you know, having long ass legs, but he doesn’t walk that fast. It usually takes him more than five minutes to traverse a terminal. But the Tucson airport is that small.

So the next thing I know, we haven’t even been out of the airplane for an hour, because it takes like thirty minutes for all of us to get off the plane, we hear that we need to get back on the plane in forty minutes so we can get to DFW. If we don’t take off before then, we’re stuck there for the night.

So we’re like, holy shamolies, and began scrambling onto the airplane because it was highly unlikely we would have found a flight to take us out of there the next day. And we took off without like three passengers because they got taken by the mist or something because nobody could find them.

Only to arrive in DFW to find that all the flights had been cancelled. Now whether it was because of bad weather or if it was because of bad weather that two planes smacked into each other, we have no idea. No one ever tells you the truth at the airlines. They don’t want to get sued.

Which meant that we were stranded in Texas. Again. This has happened to me before. And it was on American Airlines.

So I hurriedly email all the people I had meetings with the next day as I was not going to make it on time and requested they all be rescheduled for the day after.

We’re scrambling to get a flight back the next day. Any time would be great. Just get us the hell back to Orlando. So the lady is clicking away at her keyboard. She’s looking and looking and looking. and I’m like, I’m so screwed. I’m totally screwed. I’m going to be stuck in Texas for more than a day and I dont’ have any chargers for my phones or my laptop as I had packed those in the checked luggage. I tell you, NEVER AGAIN. I’m carrying all that crap on. Screw the weight!

As we were finding our tickets, the person next to us tore up his distressed passenger ticket and said, I’m not spending $100 for a hotel. And the ticket person said, Have fun walking around the terminal all night.

People were pissed. American Airlines really doesn’t care.

So our ticket lady finally said, we have a flight for you on Delta. You go to Cincinnatti first. You are kidding me! But she’s like, it’s the only flight you got. That or wait until Wednesday. So I was like, I gotta get back to work. I may look like I’m a college kid, but I work for The Man now. So I took the flight. She said to show up two hours before the flight left so we could get a boarding pass. Since we were not originally passengers with Delta, we had to go use a real live person and not one of those terminals. Fine. Fine. I can do that.

So we get a distressed passenger rate of $100 for the Sheraton in DOWNTOWN. You know why? Because all the one’s by the airport are BOOKED. Even the Motel 6!

So The Hubs and I were looking at each other like, ok, do we camp out in the airport or do we go. Cuz that’s a lot of money. Plus the cab fare there and back. It would cost as much as the flight to CA and back!

But we decided that we were going to go to the hotel. And even though that was a serious hassle and a pain the butt, I’m glad I did. Because we saw these two people who camped out at the airport and omg, they looked irritable and cranky.

As an aside, I called the Sheraton to make sure they had space because there was no way I was going to ride all the way to downtown only to discover that they too were booked. So they were like yes, we have room. Let’s book you. So we arrived and I showed the lady the distressed ticket and also the confirmation number of my reservation and we got a room.

We get up to room, realize it smelled like cigarettes even though they’re like, we don’t have a smoking room. And I’m like, whatev, you had a smoking room once upon a time, and this was it. They were like, we can febreeze it. And the Hubs was like, you can get us a new room.

So we had to trek back down to the front desk to get a new room and they were like, let’s get you something with a view.

This was the view.

Glad I didn’t pay extra for this!!

Ok, so later when I looked at my credit card bill, I saw a charge from the Sheraton for $228 and I was like, WTF is this charge? Because The Hubs put the room on his card and it was only $140 ($40 being all the fricken taxes). So I called up the Sheraton and they were like, this was a reservation that you never checked in to. Long ass story, but the gist of it was that the front desk lady didn’t check us into the confirmation number I gave her. She just put a new one in. Customer service was mean. Thanks Yoki. But I got my money back two weeks later.

Ok, so back to my flight. We awoke and showered using toiletries that we had to buy at the gift shop, which cost us an astounding $30. I need contact lens solution, yo. Who knew it would cost me $8 for a thimbleful? And $5 for the contact lens case?

Anyway, so we head back over to the airport three hours before our flight and holy giacamo, that line was long. So we stood in it. And waited. And commisserated with our fellow passengers who were also stranded the night before. And waited. And waited. We watched a girl on the phone for an hour then she went away for half an hour then came back and got back on the phone again. I mean, she was helping passengers, but an hour for one passenger is a joke. And there were only two people helping us. And first class people ALWAYS took priority.

I’m like, we’re never going to make the flight. We’re going to be stranded for another day. I’m about to die. And then the TV repairman called and I was like, we gotta cancel. I had completely forgotten about him. Our TV had broken a few days before we left for LA. But that is another story.

So we finally get to the front of the line 2 hours later. There were a couple of people in front of us who we’d exchanged pleasantries with this whole time. Then this guy walks right up to the counter and he was like, I have a quick question. The lady at the counter said, you need to get in line. And he said, I just want to know blah blah blah.

The dude in front of us said, I’m going to kick his ass. to which we all chuckled at because we were all tired and had been standing in line for two whole hours.

So we get to the front and the person we got to help us was the one that was on the phone for an hour and I was like, please don’t take an hour to print our boarding pass. And it only took her twenty minutes. Sweet Jeboobii. It takes the computer thirty seconds.

But after that. we were ok. Everything went smoothly after that even though we had to take that huge detour to Cincinnati.

And about 40 hours after we started that journey, we finally arrived home. I could have flown to China in that time and come halfway back. It was good to get out of those two day old clothes, lemme tell you, but it would have been nicer if I didn’t have to turn my undies inside out and convince myself it was like a fresh pair.

Crossposted to Samantha Ling, Dreamwidth and Livejournal