Annnnd we're back. Or at least I am, in LA. My holidays were good overall, however peppered with the worst travel luck I've ever had.
It started with Denver Blizzard #1. I was set to leave here on Dec 21st, but Mother Nature had other plans and brought the flakes the day before. I got a call from Amy first, then my Dad telling me I should check out Frontier's site as I probably wasn't coming in the next day. I immediately called their 800#, which five days later was STILL busy. I gave up and decided to go straight to the ticket counter at LAX to see if I could resolve this in person.
Once I got there, the lone woman handling all the requests was just closing up but had enough time to tell me that Frontier wouldn't be able to get me on a flight for sure until Christmas day. CHRISTMAS DAY! A guy I was in line with made the excellent suggestion that Southwest still had some pre-Christmas flights and to just book with them. I went online immediately after getting home and started looking at one-way flights on other airlines and came up with about five total, each around $800-$1,000. I went to Southwest and found a few options on Christmas Eve morning for the low, low price of $232. Not great, but not horrible. Frontier had promised a refund anyway, so I wasn't out too much, net.
Traveling that day went fairly well. I got home in the afternoon and had a nice Christmas the next day with my Dad. I went to a party later on and saw some folks from Cheyenne and drank too much (blech) and left early the next morning for Nebraska to see my Mom. Traveling that day went pretty well, too. DIA was pretty nuts, but without incident. My Mom and I had some nice time together doing all the things we normally do: Target, shopping, movies, cooking. She and Dad definitely contributed to the couple of pounds I gained in the last few weeks, but can you pass up home cooked meals? Mmmmm. Time to pull out the ipod for more walking during lunch.
Pretty much after I'd gotten to NE I started hearing stories of another blizzard hitting Denver later in the week. I was set to leave on Saturday night to spend NYE in SF, plans that Dru and I had made months in advance. One of the guys that my agency reps was performing at Cobbs, a legendary club and one of the best in the country, with some other comics who I really like as well. After spending the last several 12/31sts in the Midwest, I felt I owed it to myself to a good one this year. So needless-to-say, after hearing news of another storm in the very place I had a layover had me a little nervous.
As the week closed out, it seemed that the storm hit at just the right time and that everything would be fine by the time I got there. I kept checking Frontier's site even hours before just to make sure no changes had been posted, and everything looked fine. I arrived at the Omaha airport and again, had no problems with the ticket line or security. I spent my extra time at the gate chatting on my cell with a friend to kill time. Then it started to get close to boarding time and the incoming plane had yet to arrive. It finally did just a few minutes late and the nice guy behind the gate counter assured me that I'd make my 50 minute connection in Denver with no problem. After a little while longer, things still weren't moving along and they announced that the engine wasn't starting on its own and they needed to call a mechanic.
Awesome. Mechanical problems. And that's where the shit started flying.
I pretty much knew at that point that I wouldn't make the plane in Denver to SF. Ok, fine. Let's fly me out on the next day. Nope, no dice. All the flights from Omaha to Denver were booked solid, and even the flights from Denver to SF looked full as well. ON ALL CARRIERS. So my choice was to stay in NE for New Years and not get to San Francisco at all, or take this flight (once they got the engine fixed - FUN!), stay overnight in a hotel they provided and hope that they could get me on a flight to SF the next day, which wasn't looking likely. I had to decide this within a matter of minutes since they'd fixed the plane at this point and were boarding the folks who were going to Denver. I chanced it and thought at the very least I could spend NYE with Amy and her husband Steve and their dogs, whose time was shafted when I couldn't get there on the 21st. Not a bad Plan B.
But still nerve wracking as I had no idea what to expect in Denver. I've never been stranded in a city before where hotels and meal vouchers were concerned. Even though I knew Denver and knew people there, for whatever reason I felt really alone and uncertain and I'll admit, I just wanted my Mommy. Before I left I was ready to just scrap the whole thing and stay in Lincoln in her nice house with her dogs where it was safe and I didn't have to make hard decisions on the spot. I do that at work all the time; isn't this what a vacation is for?
Thankfully, the plane got there safely and once I arrived at the Customer Service counter, they'd already rebooked me on a flight to SF on United. All I had to do was give them my name and they had a packet ready for me with a hotel coupon and a meal voucher for the next morning, and an itinerary with my new flight. The reservations were made and all I had to do was call the shuttle service for the hotel. Frontier scored points for that; it couldn't have been easier.
Only thing was, I didn't get to the hotel until close to midnight and my flight was for 6AM, which meant going back to DIA at 3:30AM and almost no sleep. Still, the hotel was really nice (Stapleton Renaissance - I highly recommend it) with a bed that was amazing and would have been even better if I'd had more time to enjoy it (such a tease). Once I dumped my stuff I called room service, because how many times do I get a room to myself? I placed an order and then immediately cancelled because, duh, it was midnight and I needed as much sleep as possible. I found a vending machine downstairs because the restaurant had JUST closed and tried to get some crackers, but of course it wanted exact change. I was willing to forgo whatever extra I had to pay JUST TO GET SOME GODDAMN CRACKERS!! At some point, things fall so out of sorts you question what THE FUCK you did to the universe to deserve this. That said, I did finally get some crackers after a nice cleaning person gave me a dime.
As I was walking back to my room I was thinking that it's situations like this that become defining moments: an optimist would think, "hey, at least I got to spend Christmas with my Dad and I spent some good time with my Mom and I was on a confirmed flight the next day, and spending the night in a nice hotel that I wasn't paying for." The pessimist would think, "Goddammit, of course the fucking plane had problems and made me miss my flight and I have to deal with this crap and now I won't get any sleep and it's fouling up my plans in San Francisco!". At that point, I had no idea which side I fell on.
Then, things got even worse.
I "woke up" (really, just rested instead of slept) at 2:45 AM and showered and got myself to the lobby at 3:30 after waiting for the missing bellman to take my bags down (I'm not that much of a diva, but I was exhausted and so over hauling around 40lbs of luggage) and was told that the shuttle guy was warming up the van and would come in to let me know he was leaving. Of course this didn't happen and I had to sit around for the 4 AM pickup. After being dropped off, DIA was busy. At 4:30 AM. I was turned away at sky cap and sent to a special line for United serviced by the surliest bull-dyke ever. I mean, seriously, I know you have to be up at an ungodly hour for your job, but have you been wronged so much today already that you have to give me an attitude? She started to look up my ticket that had been promised to me by Frontier ("no, you don't need a record locator. Just give them your name and show them your itinerary and you'll be all set.") and as expected, nothing.
Excuse me?
I stammered that back what Frontier had told me about being rebooked and what my experience the night before was. She barked at me to give her whatever paperwork I had and then tapped away at her computer for what seemed like the longest four minutes ever. Bingo! She found it. Good. All set. I gladly passed over my luggage to her and went on my way.
I approached the security area (yeah, if you've been in DIA, it's not just a line, but a series of lines akin to Space Mountain, that takes up a sizable chunk of the airport) and started to move my way through. As I scanned my ticket so I could see with my own eyes in black and white that I did have something concrete that proved that I would reach my destination (or at least attempt to), I noticed four S's on both the main portion of my ticket as well as the tab and my heart sank once again.
To back up a bit, I make time whenever I go back to Cheyenne to visit out neighbors down the street. I babysat their kids way back in the day and they're really neat people, plus they're nearby, so it's not that much of an effort. The Dad, Dick, has flown for American for about 30 years and whenever I talk to him, air travel comes up, especially since 9/11. He made a point as we talked this time to mention this "tag", the four S's, telling me that this is what the security people look for in their random checks. Yup, I was tagged, and would have to go through the special screening (coincidence, huh?).
As I approached the front, I was told to move to the side to the special line. They took my carry-on from me (the only questionable items being the steaks I brought back from Nebraska for Dru, so thankfully no contraband)and placed me in a Star Trek-looking screener that included plastic doors to sequester me for about 90 seconds. Six nozzles came out and sent strong poofs of air, hitting me at different places to show any suspicious bulges, I assume. I was released and watched them go through my bag, wiping down almost everything inside, which took several minutes.
Finally they set me free. I still had my meal voucher from the night before, so I got into the McDonald's line once I arrived at my terminal (mmmmm, McMuffin). Of course, the Goddamn Fucking Swiss Family Retarded Robinson was in front of me, with the Dad encouraging little Timmy or whateverthefuck his name was to order for everyone and their Mormon brother. Timmy's all, "I'll have an, um......Egg McMuffin and a....orange juice and some....hash browns..." This went on for a few minutes, I swear to God. Keep in mind that time was precious and it was by some grace of God that I got on this flight in the first place, so to miss it (I had about 20 minutes at this point) would be, um, not good.
I got my food and scarfed it down at the gate (I hate bringing food on planes and hate it when others do, especially fast food) and boarded. Of course I had a middle seat next to a woman around my age who was very nice, and Jerry Garcia with a fanny pack who refused to share his arm rest. Whatever, I was on my way to SF.
THEN (are you getting tired of reading this yet? can't believe this has gone on this long? Imagine fucking LIVING IT. WITHOUT SLEEP!) the plane sits around for an hour to board some last minute luggage (keep this tidbit in mind because it'll be ironic in just about a second). Nice. Again, whatever. I'm gonna get there. We land and I make my way to baggage and....wait. And.....my bag...isn't....there.
EX-FUCKING-CUSE ME??
Now, you'd think at this point any normal person would have gone apeshit ballistic. I mean, scroll up and review what I've gone through. And take MY temper into account. With no sleep. But really, I was calm, or rather, resigned. I just didn't have any fight in me. So I went to the United baggage claim area to figure out what the shit was going on. What happened was the bull-dyke at DIA tried to check my bag through to LA (on Frontier), even though I wasn't going there for another two days, and if everything was still on schedule, wouldn't have landed in SF until a half hour PAST the time the LA flight was supposed to leave anyway. So then it became, where's the bag? United or Frontier? I went back and forth from the United terminal to Frontier's roundtrip twice (in case you were wondering, they're exactly on the opposite sides of SFO from each other. fun.). The Frontier people, who were very cool, kept an eye out for anyone from United who was trying to transfer over my bag to one of their flights, and after two and half hours, it finally turned up. I grabbed it, got into a cab (really didn't care if it'd cost me $50) and got to Dru's.
We relaxed for a few minutes and made our way to Mama's, my all-time favorite restaurant, where his friend Jeff was holding a place in line. I feasted on eggs and sweet breads and juice, went back and took a nap, and by the time I was up it felt like I'd been through a dream. Did this really all happen within the last 24 hours?
We went to Cobbs and saw one of the best comedy shows I've ever seen. Everyone was hilarious, we had a prime table reserved for us, rang in 2007, and got to hang with Greg (my client) after the show for a while. We managed to snag a cab and went to a NYE party hosted by a friend of some friends, hopped over to another party at the other comedy club where everyone who was in town for the shows gathered, chatted with some folks, and got home a little after 4AM. And laid around the entire next day.
I made it back to LA that Tuesday morning almost without incident (I was told the wrong carousel for my bag and caught it just as they were carting it away to the unclaimed bag area). And here I've stayed ever since.
