Travel Woes

You know, I can't win sometimes. Even with the best intentions, it just won't go my way.

Today I have a ticket on the 4:45 US Air shuttle from Reagan National Airport to Boston. I left the conference early and arrived at the airport at 2. I have to check in at the ticket counter to get my boarding pass, and decide to see if I can get on an earlier flight. As I go there, I realize there is an extraordinarily long line at security.

I get to the agent at 2:15. She tells me that she can get me on the 2:45 shuttle. A fearful glance at security convinced me that I would not get to the gate in time. She said there was nothing earlier than my 4:45. Just before deciding that I would settle for my original time and just get a magazine, she shrieks, "Oh- an opening on the 3:45 just came up" and before I could say OK or anything, she changed my ticket to the 3:45. Well, that is something.

I head to the security line, which has somehow disappeared during the last ten minutes. I easily pass through (remembering to remove my notebook computer for once - I always seem to forget this stupid rule and force a "swabbing for biologicals", whatever that is). I get to the gate as they are finishing boarding the 2:45 shuttle. So it turns out I could have made that one after all. Oh well, it is only another hour, correct?

INCORRECT. As soon as they close the gate for the 2:45, they announce that the 3:45 has been canceled and all passengers need to make alternate arrangements. HA? I had been on the 4:45 and was quite content with that until Miss "I can get you on the 3:45" chimed in. So I rush up to the gate and swear to them that I was originally on the 4:45 anyway. Too bad, all filled up. Earliest flight available now to me was 7 forty frickin five.

All of this because I decided to try to get an earlier flight. The double annoyance is that if I took the originally offered earlier flight I would have gotten out 5 hours earlier. Even if I had touched nothing, and stuck with the original, I would have gotten out 3 hours earlier.

I wanted to punch someone, so I decided instead to find airport internet access and purchase unnecessary things over the internet. But alas, no public internet was available - and my battery was low, and everyone else on Earth was in there hogging the available electrical outlets. So, I was forced *gasp*, to buy a book and read it.