The Miracle of Transportation

I haven't written anything remotely cynical in a good while, and I apologize... kind of. I've been doing a lot of fun things lately. My job has taken the standard "end of the year slowdown" for travelling, which means they slated me for 5 full weeks in town to recoup and try to remember where all of my illigitimate children are again... I'M KIDDING!

I know where they all are.

Giving me 5 weeks in town is apparently like giving a honey bee a honeycomb and setting him next to a wild bear - then telling the bear not to eat it. They clear away a 5 week block for me to recover and then give me SIX "short" trips that I have to go on during that time. SIX . *sigh*

So I go with a coworker to a short job the other day down in central Texas. Man it was a nice day down there. The flight was short. The travel was smooth and problem-free. Everything was happening better than it ever had been. Liesurely lunch, the work went well, etc.

Just to give you some background... I'm on a string of bad-luck trips right now. Sometimes things go wrong on the job, but for the most part its the travel that is getting me. I once was on a trip during which my coworker managed to get the last flight on the last plane out of town after some travel delays caused us to miss our first flight out. I ended up driving 6 hours home - fortunately I wasn't in California or something like that. But it was just stupid! I'm WITH the guy the whole time and somehow he gets to go home and I don't. grrrrr. Then comes the standard weather delays and my 12-hour layover in the Pittsburg airport. They have about 300 escalators and a really mean bartender at the airport and thats really all I remember. I've had a whole bunch of other mishaps lately, inlcuding another flight delay that caused me to have to fly into Chicago and take a rental car home to madison - got home at 3am.

Anyways, I'm with that same guy on this trip. And the SAME THING HAPPENS! We were really late in getting to the airport and he made it through security, but the people at the desk wouldn't let me print my boarding pass because the guy at the gate had closed the flight already - my coworker sat on the plane for an hour as they let 5 other people onto the plane after denying me and then they were stuck at the gate with the plane door open because there was a mechanical problem with the plane that had to be fixed before they could leave - I would have MORE than made it if I had crawled on my belly through the airport to get to my gate. Moral of the story, I guess, is to print out your boarding pass if you can before you get to the airport. Mistake on my part. Anyways, I had to fly to Chicago and take a rental car home. My coworker was home by 9pm and I was all snuggled and tucked away by 415am. Fortunately I only had to get up at 615am to go to work. It was almost a short night of sleep...

Flying is stupid. Planes are stupid. People are stupid... travelling is stupid...yeah.... I'm going to go find something to eat... or whatever....