fuck
I had thought that my stressful week of tests, sickness, quizzes, and lab reports was finally over. Alas, I was wrong. Very very very wrong, as the stress continued until I finally made it home.
It all started when I get to the airport. I see that my flight says "delayed" on the departure screen, but it doesn't say how long the delay is. Since it's only 2:30 and my flight leaves at 4:15, I go to one of those shop thingies and read cosmo for a while.
At about 3:45 I go back to my gate and see that there's a huge line at the ticket counter for re-booked flights. I ask someone what all that is about, and she says the flight is delayed until 6:30 and that if you have a connecting flight, you need to rebook.
Fuck. That's me. I was supposed to leave Hartford at 4:15, get to Detroit at 6:30-ish, and leave Detroit at 7:14. With the delay, I'd be getting to Detroit close to 8, missing the 7:14 flight to SA.
So they have this set of phones for a rebooking hotline. I call. The person that I talk to tells me that I'm not supposed to rebook anything until I get to Detroit, and that once I get there, I could look for a later plane heading toward San Antonio. I say OK and sit down for another 15 minutes, call the familia and tell them the news, etc.
Then I realized that the guy I talked to was a moron. How stupid would it be to get to Detroit and THEN see if there happened to be any more flights going out to San Antonio? That would be retarded. So I called the hotline again and talked to someone else, this time asking if there were any later flights going from Detroit to SA. And of course, NO, there weren't any. 7:14 was the very last one. So I tell her that I need to rebook and she tells me "I have something going from Detroit to San Antonio sometime TOMORROW." So yeah, I flip out and go hysterical on the poor woman. I mean really hysterical. "OH MY GOD I CAN'T LEAVE TOMORROW I'M A STUDENT I GO TO SCHOOL IN MASSACHUSETTS I DON'T HAVE A CAR I DON'T HAVE A PLACE TO STAY I DON'T HAVE ANY FAMILY FOR THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY I DON'T HAVE MONEY OR ANYTHING I CAN'T LEAVE TOMORROW I ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO BE HOME TODAY OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD AHHHHH!!!!!"
And she told me to go talk to the people at the ticket counter. Lawl.
So I did, and it was impossible to get to San Antonio on Northwest Airlines. It turns out I had to switch from Northwest to Delta, and on Delta I'd have to fly to Atlanta and from Atlanta, fly to San Antonio. I was glad that a solution was finally found, but still wirey and high-strung nonetheless.
I had window seats on my Northwest flight. From Hartford to Atlanta I had a damn middle. Puh.
So the flight was decent and I made it to the gargantuan Atlanta airport safely. We landed in gate A13. The flight attendents and my boarding pass said that I was departing on gate B15. I walk around the entire A concourse for about 15 minutes trying to figure out how to get to B. It probably didn't help that I was on the phone trying to talk and navigate at the same time. I finally see an arrow pointing down an escalator that says "B concourse." So I go down the escalator, I have a moment of temporary retardation and think that escalators mean baggage claim (which they usually do), and freak out and climb back up the escalator. This also gave me a very good work out- I think I'm going to make an aerobic exercise machine simulating that. So yeah, I make it back to the top and realize that climbing against the escalators was really dumb of me. So I go back down. Har.
Turns out I have to get on this train thingy to get to the B gates. I get on and make it. I finally get to my gate. Of course, it says "Flight to San Antonio has moved to gate A30."
I was in the right place all along. I also have 10 minutes before departure. FUCK. Run back over to the train area, get on train, get to A concourse as fast as possible. the A concourse is separated into 2 areas: A1-A18, and A19-A30. Of course, A30 is ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE GOD DAMN AIRPORT. I haul ass to get there, only to find out it had been delayed 10 minutes. So whew, big sigh of relief.
I get on the plane and I'm just happy that it's all over with and I'm finally on my way home. I open up Slaughterhouse Five, ready for some pleasure reading, when the first thing I read is "Billy Pilgrim got onto a chartered airplane in Ilium twenty-five years after that. He knew it was going to crash, but he didn't want to make a fool of himself by saying so."
AH!
So I close the book. Lawl. The rest of the flight was quite peaceful and nice. I've discovered that I'm really good at entertaining myself with my thoughts. I'm sure I look pretty psycho just sitting there when all of a sudden a wide grin spreads across my face...har har har. Oh well.
Finally, in San Antonio. Home sweet home. I wait for my bags on the conveyor belt. No luggage. None at all. Ha! They lost it! All of it! Hahaha! What a wonderful traveling experience.
It all started when I get to the airport. I see that my flight says "delayed" on the departure screen, but it doesn't say how long the delay is. Since it's only 2:30 and my flight leaves at 4:15, I go to one of those shop thingies and read cosmo for a while.
At about 3:45 I go back to my gate and see that there's a huge line at the ticket counter for re-booked flights. I ask someone what all that is about, and she says the flight is delayed until 6:30 and that if you have a connecting flight, you need to rebook.
Fuck. That's me. I was supposed to leave Hartford at 4:15, get to Detroit at 6:30-ish, and leave Detroit at 7:14. With the delay, I'd be getting to Detroit close to 8, missing the 7:14 flight to SA.
So they have this set of phones for a rebooking hotline. I call. The person that I talk to tells me that I'm not supposed to rebook anything until I get to Detroit, and that once I get there, I could look for a later plane heading toward San Antonio. I say OK and sit down for another 15 minutes, call the familia and tell them the news, etc.
Then I realized that the guy I talked to was a moron. How stupid would it be to get to Detroit and THEN see if there happened to be any more flights going out to San Antonio? That would be retarded. So I called the hotline again and talked to someone else, this time asking if there were any later flights going from Detroit to SA. And of course, NO, there weren't any. 7:14 was the very last one. So I tell her that I need to rebook and she tells me "I have something going from Detroit to San Antonio sometime TOMORROW." So yeah, I flip out and go hysterical on the poor woman. I mean really hysterical. "OH MY GOD I CAN'T LEAVE TOMORROW I'M A STUDENT I GO TO SCHOOL IN MASSACHUSETTS I DON'T HAVE A CAR I DON'T HAVE A PLACE TO STAY I DON'T HAVE ANY FAMILY FOR THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY I DON'T HAVE MONEY OR ANYTHING I CAN'T LEAVE TOMORROW I ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO BE HOME TODAY OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD AHHHHH!!!!!"
And she told me to go talk to the people at the ticket counter. Lawl.
So I did, and it was impossible to get to San Antonio on Northwest Airlines. It turns out I had to switch from Northwest to Delta, and on Delta I'd have to fly to Atlanta and from Atlanta, fly to San Antonio. I was glad that a solution was finally found, but still wirey and high-strung nonetheless.
I had window seats on my Northwest flight. From Hartford to Atlanta I had a damn middle. Puh.
So the flight was decent and I made it to the gargantuan Atlanta airport safely. We landed in gate A13. The flight attendents and my boarding pass said that I was departing on gate B15. I walk around the entire A concourse for about 15 minutes trying to figure out how to get to B. It probably didn't help that I was on the phone trying to talk and navigate at the same time. I finally see an arrow pointing down an escalator that says "B concourse." So I go down the escalator, I have a moment of temporary retardation and think that escalators mean baggage claim (which they usually do), and freak out and climb back up the escalator. This also gave me a very good work out- I think I'm going to make an aerobic exercise machine simulating that. So yeah, I make it back to the top and realize that climbing against the escalators was really dumb of me. So I go back down. Har.
Turns out I have to get on this train thingy to get to the B gates. I get on and make it. I finally get to my gate. Of course, it says "Flight to San Antonio has moved to gate A30."
I was in the right place all along. I also have 10 minutes before departure. FUCK. Run back over to the train area, get on train, get to A concourse as fast as possible. the A concourse is separated into 2 areas: A1-A18, and A19-A30. Of course, A30 is ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE GOD DAMN AIRPORT. I haul ass to get there, only to find out it had been delayed 10 minutes. So whew, big sigh of relief.
I get on the plane and I'm just happy that it's all over with and I'm finally on my way home. I open up Slaughterhouse Five, ready for some pleasure reading, when the first thing I read is "Billy Pilgrim got onto a chartered airplane in Ilium twenty-five years after that. He knew it was going to crash, but he didn't want to make a fool of himself by saying so."
AH!
So I close the book. Lawl. The rest of the flight was quite peaceful and nice. I've discovered that I'm really good at entertaining myself with my thoughts. I'm sure I look pretty psycho just sitting there when all of a sudden a wide grin spreads across my face...har har har. Oh well.
Finally, in San Antonio. Home sweet home. I wait for my bags on the conveyor belt. No luggage. None at all. Ha! They lost it! All of it! Hahaha! What a wonderful traveling experience.