Travelling

Written March 31, 2012 in Chicago O’Hare Airport

NOTE: I'm on vacation and I get the Internet sporadically. While I'm writing blog posts, I'll publish them when I get Internet.

The average procession to the airport for my family is as follows. We go two to three hours before our flight leaves. The drive to Philly is about a half an hour from our house, where we park in the parking lot of some vacation bussing service. And then that bus drives us to the airport. At the airport we usually spend an hour or so going through security and then we chill out until the plane comes.

And the travelling begins at this point.

                                               

                                  

Yesterday, my family and I embarked on our Spring Break vacation at the grand time of two in the afternoon. Our plan trip had been delayed a half hour or at least that’s what we thought.

Fast forward to when we actually were in the airport. We had found out that our plane had been delayed another half hour.

That usually isn’t a big deal. Unless, of course, you have a connecting flight like we did. Then you’re screwed.

 We were screwed. We were even more screwed in than a nail. We all knew this from the start and yet somehow the actual confirmation of this was enough to put all of my family members over the edge.

 My mom went on a total freak-out. Actually, that’s putting it pretty mildly. She and my dad we

re totally cursing off and my mom took everything out on the first woman that she saw. It probably would have been totally funny if I wasn’t as completely scared as I was, thinking about how we would remain totally lost in Chicago and meant to sleep in an airport that never slept.

Of course, American Airlines had to totally end up sucking with customer service. Whenever we went to get to try to get assistance, we were referred to another person. My mother was growing increasingly homicidal with each person until she actually found a person who was nice enough to help us.

It worked out. A hotel room at the Hilton had been booked and we got a flight for Salt Lake City the next day.

Of course, that meant another plane ride and another trip through security.

The Chicago O’Hare Airport has the body scanners, unfortunately. As I came up in line, my mom hissed at me not to say a word about what was going on despite how my civil liberties were being violated. So I went up and complied. The only problem was that the lady failed to tell me that I didn’t stand up long enough. Before I knew it, I had a bunch of guards after me. Despite how I could have easily just went back in line, a TSA official (female) then proceeded to thoroughly molested patted me down against my will (when she patted me down and asked if I had any sensitive spots, I bit my tongue not to say, “My vagina. That’s a bad touch.”).

                                 

                                                                 

Travelling, while fun, usually is more fun to just plan rather than actually be on. It seems to bring on more stress than relaxation sometimes and goes by more quickly than days usually go.

There’s that happy jitter but then that usual jitter tends to be broken by something terrible and unexpected.

          

And then there’s the plane ride. You know, that usual brings on the usual popped ears and boredom.

Hopefully, the Utah trip was worth all of the aggravation that we’ve dealt with. We’re boarding now so I guess we’ll find out soon enough.