Living Right

I am in TX for the weekend to attend the wedding of an old friend.

I decided to drive myself to the airport this time, since I'm only away for a few days. I was planning to be ready and leave my house by noon to get to the airport in time for my 2:20 flight, becaus I thought it took about an hour to get to the airport.

At 12:15 I actually left my apartment and realized that it is better for me to have other people drive me to the airport because I would always be on time.

I forgot that it actually takes a little over an hour and a half to get to the airport, and it also takes time to park in the economy lot, wait for the shuttle, and then check in and go through security.

When I was about halfway to the airport I realized that I would likely miss the half-hour cut off for check in and was in real danger of missing my flight. But the weather was foggy and rainy, so I secretly hoped that there would be a small weather delay, just enough to prevent me from having to buy another plane ticket and explain to my friends in TX that I was a moron because I lolly-gagged around in the morning and didn't leave my house on time. I got to the airport, parked, grabbed the shuttle, and went to check in at a kiosk. It told me:

Check-in time has closed. See attendant.

Luckily, I was in the smaller, commuter terminal and there was no line, so the attendant got to me quickly. I explained that I was a little late (7 min, be exact) but I didn' t have to check any bags so please please please let me on the plane. She looked up my info and told me that there was a 20 minute delay on my flight. I told her that's good, since I was only 7 minutes delayed.

She didn't find that as amusing as I did.

I got my boarding pass, and she told me the flight was actually in a different terminal, so I went through security and then shuttled to the other terminal. I was racing, thinking I would be the last person on the plane and that I was a grown up and should not be so flaky to almost miss a flight. Seriously, I didn't really NEED to watch the last 15 minutes of that Dr. Who episode. I raced to the gate, and

they hadn't even started boarding. In fact, the plane wasn't even there yet. So, I sighed a huge sigh of releif and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

You see, the plane arrived, the people de-planed, and then there was some sort of delay. They actually told us it was for 'unknown reasons'. There was some murmuring about smoke in the cabin, but that was never confirmed. All I know is that they eventually told us (after a 2 hours of waiting) that we were getting a new plane, and had to switch gates. We went to the other gate, and then eventually boarded. But this new plane did not have as many rows as the other one, so even though we all had tickets and they said nothing was changing, there weren't actually any seats for everyone.

Now MY assigned seat was actually on the plane, which was good, but there was already someone in it, which was bad. The flight attendant said it was because some of the seats were overbooked and that the other passengers and I needed to go back to the ticket counter to sort it out. I left the plane, but the other people didn't.

Hm.

I waited in line but no one seemed to know anything about anything so I was just going to get back on the plane, but the agent had a problem with that. Luckily, a manager type person was walking up just as I was waking down the ramp, and I explained my situation, and they gave me the LAST ticket for the plane.

Whew.

As I was getting settled in and the flight attendant went through for the pre-flight checks, she said that I must be living right, since I got the last ticket.

I told her that I think it was probably that I was lucky, and the loudest.