travel day

Nov 27, 2007 11:27

Tired. I probably shouldn't have worked trivia last night; but last week when I decided to work last night, I had just plunked down $400 on my credit card for plane tickets. And tired was a week away.

I was up at 6:00 am yesterday to make a 10:00 am flight. Spent about 90 minutes in NY/LI traffic getting to JFK, arriving a little after 9:00. Got lucky at the ticket counter because I was the only one there with six ticket agents just standing around gabbing. I promptly forgot which gate to go to, but luckily there were only 12 to choose from. Security took about 15 minutes. At the terminal, the only four information screens refused to tell me which gate I needed for my flight. Beijing? Sure. Charlotte? Absolutely. Washington, DC? Go fuck yourself (it was New York, after all).

Turned out the gate was changed to the farthest one, a floor down. The original gate was being held for the poor saps waiting on a flight from Calgary so they could use that plane to go to … um, Calgary.

Mine was a tiny little plane. Three seats per row, 1-aisle-2. I had a window seat next to an Amazon who, fortunately, was very tall but not fat. Nor did she smell, though she had that Look, you know?

There were 25-to-30 planes on the runway ahead of us. We sat in traffic for more than an hour.

Arrived at Dulles (the second-worst airport in the world ever) about 20 minutes before my connecting flight, which was, luckily again, only three gates down. Of course, three gates = half a mile at Dulles because, let's review, second-worst airport in the world ever. I was bright enough to stop at the men's room first, because the bitchy gate agent had to close up shop right now dammit! and wouldn't let me grab a snack before she closed the gate.

Only two people boarded after me. I looked out the windows and was relieved to see my luggage brought over from my first flight. We sat on the runway for 45 minutes.

By this time, all I had eaten all day was, at JFK, a two-dollar muffin worth maybe a buck and, on the JFK runway, a mini bag of pretzels. On the Dulles runway, I got another mini bag of pretzels. Somewhere over Charlotte, I ate the granola bar I had squirreled away a week before. The lovely redhead next to me offered me the other half of her machine-bought tuna sandwich, but I passed because A) tuna, and B) bought from a machine.

We arrived at Hartsfield an hour late. TSA had rummaged through my checked bag but didn't steal anything. Lightheaded, I had to settle for a crummy pizza from Domino's because Wendy's is closed for renovations.

What idiot closes a Wendy's in the food court of the world's busiest airport during the busiest travel days of the year? I shudder to think of the size of the cockroaches that must have barricaded themselves in the deep fryer. Perhaps they were waging an Underworld-style war against the rats. It's the only reason I can think of for closing the store right now.

I'm just glad the MARTA ride back to my car was uneventful. But I got home just a couple of hours before I had to head right back out to work.

And now work today. And tonight and tomorrow and tomorrow night. And then the next day and then I can sleep.

vacation, thanksgiving, travel

Previous post Next post
Up