Parlor Spider...Step In, Little Fly

Insightful thoughts and/or rants from atop the soapbox from one who wishes to share the "right" opinion with everyone.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Three-Day Tour:Odyssey of the East

To my knowledge, Prometheus was nowhere to be seen, bound or unbound, sighted or blinded. I could swear, however, that I entered the Land of the Dead and had a close brush with the Bag of Winds which pushed me back to the starting spot just like it did to Odysseus' men on their way home from the Trojan War. While I did not get turned into a pig, I certainly felt like one after the long journey home (it seemed like ten years, too, though there were no suitors to shoot upon arrival, thankfully)
I am referring to my latest scrape with what I consider to be the problem which will cause the next mass protests in this country: airline travel. In fact, I think our new president should forget about all this Iran stuff and fix MY problems...shared by, I daresay, millions of others in this country.
It was supposed to be two, one-stop flights from Milwaukee to Cleveland to Pittsburgh and back leaving on a Wednesday (who flies anywhere on a Wednesday?) to work a basketball camp for my son Blaine with the return on a Sunday...late. Having another son working for the airlines, naturally I chose the $30 version of the round trip on standby instead of a regular fare (STILL without snacks) that would eat up my salary for camp figuring that my travel times would be OK. Not so much. I got to Cleveland with little trouble, but getting to Pitt required, finally, a shuttle of "Let's meet halfway and tag team with Dad" thing. I wanted to rent a car for my four-day stay at basketball camp, but NO, I got talked out of it. So far, so good. The return, however, took the better part of three days! Here's how it went:
Nothing out of Pittsburgh on Sunday late. An early morning flight to Cleveland on Monday was filled so I got to sit. The gate agent booked me on a flight to Newark two hours later so I could get a direct flight to Milwaukee with no problem. OK, a slight delay was better than getting stranded in Pittsburgh...little did I know. About 20 minutes later, I saw so familiar-looking people walking up to the gate...lots of them. As it dawned on me that these were the folks that were ahead of me on the early flight to Cleveland, I laughed that I was lucky to have missed that flight, especially when I learned that the reason for their return was an engine failure in mid-air! I felt like I had dodged a bullet there as the proverbial bag of winds had blown them back to Pittsburgh. The humor, however, was short-lived, because many of them were subsequenbtly booked to the nearest hub of that airline, located in, you guessed it, Newark. No 12:30 flight to Newark; no 2:30 flight to Newark, and no seats left on the next flight to Cleveland. Of course, my Monday flight to Milwaukee (the only one with seats remaining for the day) had long since departed Cleveland. All of this left me with but three options: sleep in Pittsburgh's airport (nice, as airports go, with free Wi-Fi); rent a car one-way for the two-hour drive to Cleveland (at $200, this was almost twice as much as my original plan to rent a car in Cleveland for 4 days!); or humble myself, call both daughters-in-law and beg for another relay-of-Dad between the two cities. I chose option #2 and spent the rest of the day apologizing for the inconvenience...What? Of course they had other things to do, but by this point I think everyone knew that I was on the cusp of a meltdown. It was now two days into the odyssey that was my return from camp. Staying overnight in Cleveland wasn't bad: I got to play with the grandkids for several hours, cleaning the cat crap out of the sandbox and brushing sand off one kid's feet who hated sand and generally hang out, fielding calls from coaches wondering where I was and when I would be back to meet with their students; to thse queries, I replied, "I'll text you when I get home."
Tuesday morning's 7:30 flight out of Cleveland had 23 seats available, so it was seemingly a sure thing; however, a flight leaving that early required an arrival at the gate time that was far too early to get two young kids out of bed (their Mom began work at 4:30 and was unavailable) so it was the cab company for me.
Arriving at the airport, I produced a credit card to pay for the cab, grabbed my bags and headed for security. The lines were long, and I had stood for five minutes getting nervous when my phone rang with the message that I'd left my wallet in the cab. Needing an ID for the TSA folks, I rushed to the curb, retrieved my wallet (glad to have tipped generously upon the first exit!) and stood while the X-Ray machine decided whther or not the balls that I had in my bag which lit up when hit were dangerous (in the outgoing flight from Milwaukee, they actually opened my bag and X-rayed the balls separately). Perilously close to boarding time, I had to remind myself that the orthopedist had strictly enjoined me NOT TO RUN for fear of doing damage to my achilles which had suvived camp activities.
Boarding the plane, I discovered that the coffee machine had broken.
Driving through Milwaukee, I discovered Trader Joe's didn't open for another 45 minutes.
Arriving in Green Bay, I discovered it was going to be 90 degrees yesterday.
It almost made me long for the coolness of the Pittsburgh airport.
Almost.
I'm renting a car in Cleveland next year, no matter what anyone says.

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