A Comedy Of Errors

Yesterday, I flew from New York City to lovely Champaign/Urbana for both a little business and to see some of the Chicago guys. Let me take you through the entire day so you can see what the current state of travel in this country is... if you haven't travelled in a while of course.

The day began with a cab ride to LaGuardia. This was actually probably the easiest part of my entire day. I got dropped off at the airport and was only carrying on so I quickly got my ticket and couldn’t use the self check in machine. I am not allowed to use the self check in machine due to the face that a terrorist uses my name as an alias. I have to check in with an agent because he/she has to make sure that I was not born in approximately 1945. Any way, I get checked in and buy some magazines. Standard purchases really, Spin, Blender & Men’s Health.

I walked to my gate everything is cool. The 11:45 flight from LaGuardia to O’Hare was on time. Great! Looks like I missed the bad weather that just pelted the Chicagoland area. We get on the plane I was in the 24th row on a window and had an empty seat in the middle of my row. Amazing! The guy to had some of his stuff on the middle seat but that didn’t bother me at all. I decided to close my eyes and ended up passing out before we even took off. The next thing I know, we start taking off and it took forever for the plane to actually get off the ground. It felt like it was speeding up to take off for a mile. When we took off it was bumpy almost immediately. Then I passed out again.

All of a sudden we landed. I was like holy shit I have never slept through a flight before, I was shocked. I opened the window and saw the Empire State Building. I was shocked. Turns out the plane broke mid take off and landed at JFK. That’s right we flew across Queens.

We waited for an hour before they even announced the flight was cancelled. Luckily I got myself a seat on some later planes. I had to stand in the line about 30th to get my tickets just printed. No one would print them for me! It took an hour to get them and I still had 2 hours until my new flight, so I sat at a bar and had a few pints of Guinness.

I am now getting ready to board my 3:40 to Chicago. In 4 hours I have crossed Queens. I board my plane and again go to sleep, which is always easy to do in the middle seat. But we can’t take off yet. The old woman in front of me refused to quit her cell phone conversation. I could not believe what was going on… the whole plane was yelling at her but she wouldn’t get off. Then when she did, the phone rang and she TOOK THE FUCKING CALL!

The flight went easy after that and we landed in Chicago and I made the final boarding call for my Champaign flight. I had the single aisle seat. Money. The girl sitting across the aisle from me was a very attractive Mexican girl who told me she was from Mexico City. She was interested in what I did for a living until she told me she was getting ready to finish her PHD for neurosociology. Yup she studies the functions and actions of the brain. The nerd next to her was on his way to U of I for an interview to do the same… I was yesterday’s news quick. I have a wonderful girlfriend who love with all my heart and I would never do anything to compromise our relationship, but its always fun talking to attractive girls… not even flirting just talking. I over heard her say that he friend think she is crazy and a psycho, the next second her cell phone rang and it was the whistle from Kill Bill… it was creepy as shit… so creepy that I want the ringer.

Then the de-icing truck came to hose down the plane. It broke down. It broke down. It broke the fuck down, right behind the plane. So we left late. I just sprinted from the H 13 to G 17 in 10 minutes for this!

Any way another truck came in 15 minutes or so and I made it to Champaign in time to have some drinks with my friends and watch the Bulls game. I hate flying.