Home again, home again...
Friday night I dropped the rest of my team off to fly home and then went back to the hotel.
I threw out the extra boxes for the parts we had shipped there on Monday.
As I did I found one that had been left behind on the shipment home. (Only 1 of these three, but I don’t have a photo of it alone…)
So, Saturday morning I towed it to the airport with me.
I got to the airport 3 hours early. And, good thing too. It was VERY busy for a weekend morning and it took me more than an hour to get through security.
One woman was in a rush and behaving badly. After I put my things on the X-ray belt and got in line for the scanner, she pushed my stuff back and put her stuff ahead of mine.
I didn’t want to get out of line to stop her, so just went through and waited on the other side.
As she was shouting at the people that she only had a few minutes to get to her flight, the guy working the X-ray said "There’s something suspicious in this one, better go inspect it by hand."
I had thought it would be my strange robot freezer part, but it was her bag instead.
"You can’t search mine, I have to get to my flight!"
"You should have left more time for security," they told her. "I think we should search all of your bags."
It might be mean of me, but I was not sorry for her.
I did think it was nice that they had set up special areas for people to get out of the rush of people if they have mobility problems.
I hadn’t realized the level of need they have. There were 8 people in wheelchairs on my flight and more than half the 100% full flight was over retirement age.
It did mean it took longer than normal to load the plane.
The woman loading folks on the plane made an announcement about this.
"If you are going down the aisle of the plane and no one is in front of you, YOU ARE HOLDING UP THE LINE AND SHOULD MOVE ALONG!"
There was one woman, who didn’t seem that old, who seemed very confused getting on.
"Can you lift my bag up for me," she asked one man. "I just had eye surgery and can’t lift my elbow."
And telling the people in her row.
"I picked the window seat as I have to get up every half hour."
The flight was quite rough. I was in the aisle seat and couldn’t see out the window much, but it looked cloudy almost all the way.
Of course I was seated next to a couple and their 1 year old child. The child expressed all emotions as various levels of squeals and screams.
I am glad I had my ear plugs.
Getting off the plane also had similar challenges.
One older woman stopped the line getting off because she couldn’t extend the handle of her luggage.
"I’ll carry it for you," the flight attendant said.
"You don’t have to," she said.
"Oh yes I do," he said and marched towards the front of the plane.
"That’s my bag!" she shouted.
"And it will be up at the front when you get here," he replied.
She got moving.
We all got moving until a second woman stopped to talk with the same attendant.
"You should move along now," he told her.
It took more than half an hour for me to get off of the plane.
And, once I got out of the airport I ran into contraction slow downs on the Mass Turnpike.
So, an hour or so later than expected I got home.
I was very happy about this.
I slept for about 12 hours when I got home, which is vastly more than normal. (Normal is about 7.)
Yay for being home!