The Lost Pages

Around the country in 18 hrs!

Well..this is a long one. so please read on if you have like ten minutes to spare. Ya through out this post, I use the phrase "Shoop! daa-dee shupda shupda" to indicate long hours spent on pointless waiting doing basically nothing.

The story starts off with me going to Seattle for some business.For information sake, I live in Bethlehem,on the east coast, an hour away from Philadelphia. Anyways,the flight route was Bethlehem - Chicago - Seattle. Stayed there for two days. Nothing interesting to report. Finally I start off on the Friday morning to Seattle airport. My flight was on the same route I came Seattle - Chicago - Bethlehem.

Now, I reach the airport 40 minutes before my flight was supposed to take off. The kiosk at the counter doesnt allow me check-in. I ask the person at the counter to give me my boarding pass. She says that since I had luggage to be checked in, the latest time they could've allowed me to check in was 45 minutes before take-off time. OK i politely flash her my shameless smile (which I tell you, works!) and ask her if she could make me an exception since I was like 5 mins late. Nope she wont budge and asks me to wait in the queue for "Additional Services". I see like 15 people in front of me and my flight leave in 40 mins! Crap!I wait and by the time my turns comes up at the counter my flight had already left. Spent a good hour waiting in the queue.

Anyways at the counter, I explain her my condition and she punches some keys pretty fast on her keyboard and gave an expression like she had to solve the most difficult math puzzle ever. And she says "Well sir, you have missed your flight and its a Friday. Pretty busy and almost all the flights are full. The next flight that will take you to Bethlehem leaves Seattle tonight at 11PM. Hows that?" I check my time. 11:45 AM!!. What the fuck am i supposed to do till midnight ? Sell peanuts at the airport? Anyways i tell her that the mentioned flight is not good and ask her if there is any other flight that goes to airports closeby to Bethlehem like Newark. She says there's one that leaves at 4PM that day. i will have to change planes at Denver though. Said i was fine with that. So

Seattle Airport,12PM - 4PM: Shoop! daa-dee shupda shupda

Get on the flight to Denver.2 hr flight not bad. Finally reach Denver at 5PM local time. Fine great.stupid buggers did not gve me lunch in the plane and i was starving. my connecting flight was at 6PM. cool! i can grab something to eat. i go out to the main terminal in the airport and grab two slices of pizza. now to get back to my terminal i had to go through security clearance again. and voila! thats where fate strucks me again. the entire denver airport (which i tell you is as big as John F. Kennedy airport) has onle one security clearance point. And there were like 50 ppl in the queue already!!!!!! and i had like 45 mins before my flight took off. I stand in the queue for security clearance and by the time i am done it was 6.:15PM! Crap!! missed my flight at Denver again!!! and please, for my sake, take a look at the map to see where Denver is! its in the middle of the damn country. and i live on the east coast!

And guess what! my suitcase, which i checked in as luggage at Seattle, has left with the plane to Newark!!So i go the airlines counter again and explain my situation again. They give me the usual crap about how it is a Friday evening and all the flights are full. I told them something to the effect of "go fuck your mothers.i dont care.get me out of denver.i dont like it here. I want to get back to east coast" in a more civilized way. So they put me on some airline (called Frontier Airlines) that leaves at night 12 to Philadelphia. Fine! So,

Denver Airport,6:45PM-12AM (on a Friday): Shoop! daa-dee shupda shupda

Get on my Phil. flight and after the flight lands, i get out of the airport and the cool (actually freezing) air greets me. Never was I so hapy for take in the cold! This is east coast y'all mother fuckers! Its cold and I like it here!!!!!!

Reached Phil. at 5:30 AM local time on Saturday morning. Took a train to Newark,which took me an hour. Collected my suitcase at the Newark airport and got on a bus to Bethlehem. The bus ride was for 2.5 hrs and finally back to good'ol Bethlehem!!!! Holy Mother of God!!!!

The most unluckily long and boring trip I have ever had!!!

posted by Vithal @ 11:50