- Travel Tale -

By some miracle, I actually arrived at the conference today. It all started when I stopped at the bank this morning and couldn't find my cash card. I'd left early so I just had enough time to go home and pick it up before heading to the airport.

Ok, so I'm going along, hitting every red light, but, hey, I'm cool about it.

So I arrive at the airport a little more than an hour before the flight, a bit tight but certainly ok, especially given that it's an early morning flight, so the wait at security isn't as long.

So I pull in to park, butgo in the wrong gate. Oops. Exit and back around the airport. Ok, lost ten more minutes on that, but still cool about it. I'm down to about 50 minutes. Getting tight, but it still shouldn't be a problem.

So I park and get to the shuttle station. There are already about 10 people there, so surely a shuttle has to be coming along soon, right? Am I wrong in thinking that?

Evidently I am. Because we wait there another 15 fucking minutes. The time clicks by. Finally, the shuttle comes. (Of course a second shuttle is right behind that one. Now that's useful. Whatever.)

Ok, so I arrive at the terminal and sprint to the kiosk. Enter my information. Which fucking airport am I going to again? What's its fucking code. So I finally just punch in the city. The computer takes its time finding the record. At last, there it is. I say I want to check one bag, press continue.

Uh-uh.

Time is 6:16 for a 6:45 flight. Missed the fucking check-in time by one minute.

Grrrr. I think I should have just stayed in bed.

* * * * *

Well, all's well that ends well. I flew standby all the way and managed to get in only about 90 minutes later than planned. And the hotel even has free wireless.

Now I can relax. Except I have to go out and see all those damn people at the conference.