a February 14th, 2011

  1. Finally — Home Sweet Home

    February 14, 2011 by myeye

    Today I did something so stupid — truly so stupid.  I had booked “get away fares” at Southwest so I could go to the puppy party.  I paid no attention to the routing coming home.  It turned out to be Nashville to Baltimore to Chicago to Albuquerque.  That’s bad, but I made it worse.  I landed in Baltimore and looked at the departure screen — there was the Albuquerque flight at the gate at which I had just arrived.  I was happy!  So, I sat down with Mills (remember?  That’s my Kindle) and was happily reading.  I looked up at the screen and saw the flight was delayed a bit, but my brain was swarming with images of puppy and not a single practical thought, so I went back to reading Mills.  Time to stand in line.  I was A27.  I went to the appropriate stanchion.  Another passenger walked up to me and said “What’s your number?”  I said, “A27.”  He said “No, I’m A27.”  I said, “Well, shoot.  Southwest made a mistake.”  He said, “No, you have a different flight number on your boarding pass.”  I said, “Oh, S**T.”  Sure enough I’d missed my plane, on a Sunday afternoon the day before Valentine’s Day.

    So, SW started trying to get me on other flights Stand By (that’s what you become when you blow your reservation).  I got on another Baltimore/Chicago/Albuquerque flight.  In Chicago, I was bumped off the plane because the flight from Chicago to Albuquerque was full of people who had “reserved” seats.  I sat in Chicago for a l-o-n-g time.  Finally there was a seat on a plane to Denver with a 10 minute connection to the Denver/Albuquerque flight.  Southwest held the flight to Albuquerque for a bunch of weary travelers trying to get back here.  My luggage had been at Southwest baggage for many hours when I showed up.

    I drove the 45 minutes home, arrived at 12:30 AM, greeted all the baddogs, took the tape off Nola’s ears, and now I’m going to bed.  I’ll clean the residue from the red baby’s ears tomorrow morning.