It Could Have Been Worse

Look! Green stuff!

Sorry for not posting anything this week… it was kind of a hectic week.  Here’s a story for you though.

I always consider things like Friday the 13^th and full moons to be lucky for me, so when I decided to travel on Thursday the 12^th, I really didn’t think anything of it. As many of you know, I’m in the process of moving to Austin… well, I needed to go on a house hunting trip.

I decided to work on Thursday and fly out after work so that I’d be in Austin bright and early on Friday. From the moment Thursday rolled around, one thing after another went wrong. I couldn’t find my keys, and racing around the house to find them got the dogs excited. I put the dogs in the backyard, eventually found the keys, and decided to load up the car. The dogs jumped at the gate and barked at me from the backyard like they were going to try to jump through.

Finally, car loaded, dogs loaded, and I dropped them off at my parents’ house. Then on to work. I won’t say how late I was to start, but I only got in 10 minutes late. The way our schedules are set up, we have no time between appointments, which is usually okay because at least one person no shows or cancels. EVERY. PERSON. ON. MY. SCHEDULE. SHOWED. UP. I can’t tell you the last time that happened. Amazingly, I managed to leave on time, and then I got lost going to park my car. Yes, I know. I always park my car in the same lot, and for whatever reason, my maps program directed me to the wrong place, and because I am who I am, I thought, “I’ve never gone this way before. Maybe the map is rerouting me around traffic.” Yeah, go ahead and laugh.

I got to the airport one hour before scheduled take off. I figured, “Security at Sky Harbor never takes more than 10 minutes. I can get something to eat, and it’ll be fine.” Except that Sky Harbor did take more than 10 minutes. It was about a half hour, not excessive, but here we are at boarding time. I figured, “No big deal. It’s a two and a half hour flight. I’m hungry, but I’ll snack and eat something on the other end.” (Are you seeing a pattern?)  So I zipped in to one of those places that sells magazines and bought Combos and dried apples. Best decision ever.

We boarded late and got into the air late (if I had known that, I could have gotten real food!). We were about a half hour from Austin when the captain announced that there were bad storms in Austin, so we’d have to circle for a half hour. A half hour later, he announced we were told to circle for 50 minutes, and he didn’t have the fuel, so we’d land in San Antonio.

At this point, all I wanted was to get up and stretch. When we landed in San Antonio though, we had to sit in the plane on the runway for an hour because of the lightning; no ground crews could come out in that. So, then we got to go inside the terminal. The wonderful terminal. The magical terminal. Where I got to walk around and stretch. (Still no food open though.  It was way too late at that point.)

Then we were informed that the crew was at their maximum work hours for the day, so we’d have to wait for a crew to get in from Phoenix (yes, the very place I’d just left.) They got there after weeks… months… years… (it seemed). We were barely in the air before it was time to land (the flight time is 22 minutes).

So… my original arrival time in Austin was about 11 p.m. Actual arrival time was 3:30 a.m. When I got to Austin, it didn’t surprise me even a little bit when I realized that the rental car agency didn’t open until 6. At that point, I just laughed. And laughed. I waited by the baggage carousel, fully expecting my luggage to be gone. Lo and behold, it was there! Honestly, I’d rather wait two and a half hours for Hertz to open than to buy a new swimsuit.

It’s a comedy of errors, and a few times through the night, I found myself annoyed, but I have to keep in mind that I’d much rather have this story to tell than telling a story about a plane crash due to bad weather.

So yeah, it definitely could have been worse.   🙂