Luck be a Lady

A few weeks ago my wife and I needed to catch a plane from Seattle to Utah for vacation. We had recently moved to the Puget Sound area for a new job opportunity, and I wanted to maximize my work hours.

We planned out the trip so that she came out and picked me up and then headed to the airport. Traffic on a Friday, starting sometime before 4, is abysmal. Thankfully we could get into the carpool lane, but even then it was slow as molasses.

At some point we got stuck behind a motorcyclist with his lady-friend on the back seat who would only go 30 mph above what the neighboring traffic was traveling at, even though there no cars in sight in front of him. Grumble grumble grumble.

We arrived at the airport with about 45 minutes to spare, quickly ran in and picked up our boarding passes, and then we bolted for the fairly long security line.

As the line inched forward, we became more and more anxious about our flight. At the ID check, my lovely wife noticed that the express lane was empty, so we slipped past our line over to the coach-side of the express line. That saved us a good 10-15 minutes.

After the checkpoint, my wife asked where the S terminal was, and I pointed her in the right direction. She went on ahead while I was trying to finish putting on my belt, shoes, etc.

I caught up with her at the subway shuttle. We got inside and the shuttle headed for terminal A on its way to terminal S, the whole route being one big loop. We were down to about 20 minutes before departure, and the gate agents were supposed to close the gates in 5 minutes. Too bad the stupid tram had to go to a different stop along the way.

When we got to the S terminal, I ran ahead to get to the gate to inform them that my wife was almost there and that she was hurrying to arrive. Thankfully we got to the plane in time and were able to safely make our trip.

I, meanwhile, vowed to not let that happen again. I want AT LEAST an hour at the airport, just to be safe.

* * *

Three weeks later, I needed to make the same trip. I hadn’t seen my wife in all that time and couldn’t wait to meet up with her again. I just don’t sleep well when she isn’t around.

My last trip cost me more than $100 in parking fees ($28 a day) and I didn’t want to repeat that. I planned out my trip to the airport, looking at potentially taking public transportation. I could get there by 5 if I started at 3:30. But my return trip is too late at night for me to get back to our apartment on the bus. So I was constrained to take my car. I found an off-site parking lot which charges half what the airport charges, and I would have to take a shuttle to and from the airport. No big deal.

3:30 for the bus? It would have to make a bunch of stops along the way. I’m driving a car and don’t have to make any stops. I could leave work at 4 and be there in plenty of time… Oh, how soon we forget.

Toward 4 pm, a flurry of emails arrived discussing some aspect of our software. I am not too familiar with the codebase, but I was poking around and noticed something that might violate some of the assumptions in the discussion. I quickly wrote out a large email explaining my concerns and then bolted out of the office at 4:10.

I hit the freeway and it was clear sailing. As I zipped around a curve, suddenly traffic was at a standstill.

Dang it!

I was headed west and needed to head south, but that exit was crammed. I bypassed the line that was taking an off-ramp to get onto the next freeway toward my normal destination. I noticed that the GPS actually wanted me to bypass that exit. In fact, it wanted me to go far to the west and then take a different freeway south.

I am in a rush and too many variables makes me nervous. So I just hopped off at the next exit, hopped back on the freeway going east. and was able to get onto the southbound freeway faster than if I had taken the westbound to southbound exit. The GPS estimated my time to the airport and it was identical, if not a minute shorter, than the original route it had planned. Woo hoo!

Then I was in 10-40mph traffic for several miles. I called my wife to let her know that I was running late but hoping to make it on time. She mentioned the airline’s policies on missed flights, so I really wanted to catch this flight instead of paying another $300 to catch a different one. But I couldn’t hop in the carpool lane to speed things up this time. The far right lanes, amazingly, traveled faster than the left-most lanes most of the time. And I stayed to the right the entire way.

Half-way there, traffic let up and we were going 60 again.

As I got to close to the airport, traffic slowed again, and I found out why. Some minivan had rear-ended a motorcycle. Couldn’t they have moved to the side of the road instead of stopping in the fast lane? Sheesh!

I got to the airport and decided my $30 in savings from the off-site parking just wasn’t worth it. I parked on site, grabbed my bags, took a photo of my stall, and then ran to the check-in counters.

I took the elevator down to where the skybridge was located and found that this particular one was closed. So I had to run down to the next one, across, and then back to the check-in counters.

Thankfully, I had already done check-in through my phone, so I could just scan the supplied barcode and get a boarding pass. I did this the last time I was at the airport and I thought it was pretty slick.

But the machine wouldn’t let me.

ACK!

I was too late to check-in that way. And there was no way I was going to waste time with an attendant. Too many people were in line…

So I just decided to follow the instructions on the airline’s webpage showing the barcode and take my phone straight to the gate. Another variable that could potentially fail, but I didn’t have a choice at this point. I raced to the security station and wondered if they had the processes in place to get me through. (I was also grateful that I had been exercising lately because I couldn’t have done all this running in my prior condition).

I got to the security lines; no one was there. Yes!

I pulled out my phone, and the security agents just scanned the barcode, looked at my driver’s license, and pointed me toward the fastest line through the x-ray machines.

I took off my belt and shoes, whipped everything out of my pockets, grabbed my gels out of my carry-on, and ripped out my laptop.

After the scan, I shoved my laptop into my backpack, slapped on my shoes, and threw everything else into my carry-on. I hauled on my backpack, reached for my carry-on, hooked a finger through my belt loop, and RAN to the shuttle pickup while trying to keep my pants from falling down.

I got to the shuttle just as it arrived!

Once inside, I set down my bags and proceeded to buckle my belt and tuck in my shirt—whoops! I replaced my ID in my wallet and slid my phone, wallet, and keys back in my pockets.

The shuttle actually went to the S terminal first, instead of going to A, for which I am grateful. So I got to the S terminal a couple minutes sooner than last time and booked it up the two long flights of stairs. Then I had to find out which gate the plane was leaving from. A quick check of the nearby LCD screens told me where to go, and I was off!

The airline agents had just started to declare stand-bys. I went straight to the counter to tell them that I had arrived. “You’re here? Wow!” I showed her the barcode on my phone and she told me to just take it to the gate. Cool stuff!

Luckily, I made it to the gate with very few minutes to spare. Three to be exact. Thankfully, I still had a place on the flight; I really did not want to spend another weekend home alone.

As I sat down, I remembered my watch. I took it out of my backpack and strapped it on my wrist.

I felt really sorry for the two people I sat between and the several people in the rows around me. I’m sure that I stunk quite a bit. I pointed the air nozzle straight down on my head to help me cool off so that my aroma wasn’t quite so bad, and to quickly carry away the smell. However, I got a whiff of the stench from time to time, and I would again feel really sorry for my poor neighbors. Good thing the flight was only a couple hours long...

I really do NOT want a repeat performance. I vow to be at least an hour early next time. Maybe I should plan for two.