Frequent Flier Blues

Monday was a cloudy, rainy day. I was scheduled to fly out but everything on the Internet indicated flights were on time. I arrived 2 hours early at the airport for a flight to San Diego. There was an earlier flight leaving in 20 minutes in terminal A, gate A29. I was in the terminal D, scheduled to leave from D37. Rather than rush over to A29 via the tram, engage in some serious speed hiking and a likely get middle seat if I’m lucky enough to get on, I thought it better to get a Starbucks coffee and chocolate chip cookie, go to my gate and leisurely wait for my flight. I was scheduled to arrive 3 hours before my dinner with Lea, no problem. After about an hour, I noticed I was still about the only person at the gate. I checked my emails and sure enough, American had sent me several notifications of a gate change. The new gate was A29. I’m thinking this is a bad omen. I get to A29 in time to hear the announcement of another gate change to C2, a third gate in a third terminal. I’m thinking a really bad omen. I get to C2 about 25 minutes before scheduled departure. The gate attendant is asking all the San Diego passengers to find a seat and quit bothering her. She needed to focus her attention on getting the plane that was currently at the gate awaiting departure for Mexico City. This is no longer an omen, its crap.

The Mexico City plane was held for passengers due in from Honolulu. The two previous gates I was at were empty. Someone is messing with me. Finally, that plane leaves the gate, my plane arrives and empties passengers. Then just we are getting ready to board, the gate agent announces that an emergency chute accidentally deployed and they need to call maintenance. An hour later we finally start to board. The plane is full and no one is looking forward to a 3 hour flight. We wait in line for our turn to take off. Finally, it is our turn. Then we get the announcement that they just closed the airport, waiting for a thunderstorm to move through. The pilot explains how important our safety is but I just want to kill someone. Instead, I call Lea and cancel dinner. I’ve got three million American miles and wouldn’t mind if I never got another one.