Holiday from Hell (part 1)

I've never missed a flight before, at least not that I can remember. My mom has horror stories of losing our passports in an Indian airport and missing our flights to Hyderabad in 1988, but I was only six months old at the time, and I don't remember it. The closest I've ever come to actually missing a flight was when I flew out to Washington DC to start my internship at MedImmune after my second year of college. That experience involved an impasse at security, a mad sprint to the gate from the train at Denver International Airport, and extreme tachycardia. I ran through the gate in truly dramatic fashion, ending up the last passenger to board the aircraft in a scene that was movie-worthy. That was a close call, but I still made it. On the Holiday from Hell, everything changed.

The tale of my trip starts on a Wednesday. I finished up work at the lab in downtown Chicago and slowly made my way home, meandering through stores in the Water Tower mall en route.  Despite the fact that I was leaving for New Zealand in less than twenty-four hours, I was still unhurried.  Around midnight, the reality of having done absolutely no packing for my trip hit me, and I began tearing around my room in search of clothes like a madwoman.  My backpack was crammed to its volumetric limit in the next two hours, with clothes, sleeping bag, toiletries, etc.  Around 2am, I fell asleep on my bed from exhaustion, intending to get up again in a few hours.  I slept through my alarm on Thursday morning.  I realized this with a horrified feeling as I stared at the clock.  It read 10:17, nearly three hours later than my intended wake-up time.  I ran around getting ready and jumped on the train to Evanston to go to lab to finish my last-minute chores.  I gave myself an hour to do them, and by 1pm, I was headed to the train station again.  In my haste, I had not eaten breakfast or lunch, but I had grabbed a couple of granola bars from my lab stash.  I ate one on the way back home, and when I reached home, I raced to pack all of my last-minute things.  I found some leftover oven fries in the fridge that I had made on Wednesday night and tossed them into my pack along with the second granola bar.  Shouldering my pack, I set out from my apartment at 2:30.  My flight was at 5, and I was hoping the trip to the airport would be quick.  I looked like a lunatic, walking down Belmont Ave with a backpack that was taller than me.  A mom with a stroller shielded her child's eyes as she skirted around me.  A couple crossed to the opposite side of the road to avoid coming too  near me.  Standing out as I did, I managed to quickly  hail a cab to take me to the Belmont blue line.  I caught the blue line, which took me to Chicago O'Hare airport by 3:15.

Once there, I was faced with a dilemma.  I had already tried checking in on the United Airlines website but failed because they could not find my trip information.  I had called Travelocity to confirm that my reservation still existed and had been yelled at by a machine that refused to answer my questions.  My leading theory was that since the flight was booked through Air New Zealand, I would have to check in through Air New Zealand.  However, on O'Hare's list of terminals, Air New Zealand was nowhere to be found.  I decided to check with United and hope for the best, and accordingly, I headed off to Terminal 1.  There were people everywhere in Terminal 1, which was surprising for a Thursday afternoon, I think.  O'Hare always seems to be full of people though.  I stood in line at the international check-in for a while, until it was finally my turn.  I then attempted to check in, but an error message appeared on the screen.  The agent who was directing traffic hurried me over to another line where I proceeded to wait again.  There were only two agents working and a significant line.  One of the agents was tied up trying to sort out a group of Telugu people who appeared to have put their passports in their suitcase and checked it in.  I had no idea how to go about finding luggage in the labyrinth of conveyor belts housed in the guts of the airport.  Neither, apparently, did the agent.

When it finally came my turn, I was expecting some drama.  The agent had my boarding documents printed and ready to go before I could properly zip my bag to check it in.  The security lines were enormous, but even that went smoothly.  I began to relax a bit as I walked toward my gate.  Maybe the travel gods were on my side this time.  I knew that my flight to San Francisco was delayed by an hour, but as I had sbuilt two hours of layover time into my itinerary, I was confident that I would I make my flight to Auckland.  Still, it never hurts to make sure, so I stood in line at the desk at gate C10 to inquire about my connecting flight.  There was some drama going on there.  A group of agents were crowded around a computer screen and arguing.  The supervisor, newly arrived, inquired where the customer was.  "She was about to have a nervous breakdown, so she went to the bathroom," one of the agents informed him matter-of-factly.  Well.  Okay then.

The agent at the far end of the desk motioned for me to step up, and I hurried over, sidestepping the huddled group.  I explained my concerns to Pedro, who took my boarding pass and looked up my flight.  He was a tall man with a bit of a belly, a contrast to his short, thin companion Orlando, who was standing nearby.  The two of them were chatting in Spanish about the ruckus, and I amused myself by secretly eavesdropping.  "I'm trying to rebook you through LA," Pedro informed me suddenly.  I was startled.  "You think I'll miss my connection?" I asked cautiously.  "Yeah, it's a mechanical problem with the aircraft.  It'll probably get delayed more, so I wouldn't risk it."  I shrugged, suddenly feeling very fortunate that I had thought to double check.  He began the process of rebooking me.

That's when the expletives began.  At first, it was just as he vented his frustration over the frozen computer in Spanish to Orlando.  After pounding fruitlessly on the keyboard for a few minutes, he stalked over to the phone.  "I can't exchange the damn ticket," he spat.  Thirty-five minutes and two phone calls later, I had my boarding pass for the flight to Los Angeles, departing at 6pm and arriving 8:40.  My flight to Auckland from LA was at 9:45, the same time as my original flight from SF had been.  Pedro assured me that I would have plenty of time to make the connection.  He gave me an itinerary and a receipt and told me to get my Air New Zealand boarding pass at the gate in LA.  "What happens to my luggage?" I inquired.  "It'll get rerouted," he assured me.  I ventured off to gate C9 to find my new flight.

The first thing I saw was that the flight had been delayed by 15 minutes.  I shrugged and sat down, unconcerned.  It was then that I remembered the cold fries in my backpack.  Tearing open the foil package, I wolfed them down.  Never in my life have potatoes been so delicious.  Having eaten, I felt a little more relaxed about life.  I called my parents and updated them, then texted my brother to inform him of my changed itinerary.  We had arranged to meet in the Auckland airport, just outside the international arrivals area.  Since my flight from LA would arrive around the same time as my flight to SF, I wasn't worried.  Pedro had said that there were 9 people going to Auckland and 9 people going to Sydney on the delayed flight to SF, so I assumed they were all being rerouted through LA as well.

I finally got on the plane for the flight to LA, and I had a middle seat.  Everyone sat down, and the doors of the airplane were closed.  We continued to sit.  Finally, at 7pm, we departed.  Shortly after takeoff, the captain came on the overhead, his voice full of sinful promises of an on-time arrival in LA.  The flight was scheduled to be 3 hours and 39 minutes long.  Around 8pm LA time, I began to get nervous that no preparations for landing were being made.  The man on my left continued to snore.  The girl on my left continued to drink bottles of red wine and write songs about California girls so thin you can break them in half and New York girls who don't know how to laugh.  At 8:20, the captain's voice purred that we would be on the ground in less than 30 minutes.  I relaxed a bit at that, thinking that I'd have plenty of time.  At 9pm, the plane finally landed.  At 9:20, the plane finally made it to the gate.  By this point, I was nearly mad with rage and anxiety.  I pushed my way to the front of the plane and made it off at 9:25.  The people on the plane were kind enough to move out of my way when I explained that I had a connection.  I pushed past someone who was connecting to Sydney, and she wished me good luck.