All events occur the morning of Friday, September 26, 2014.
3:30am - Instead of packing the night before, I decided to take a nap and wake up early to do laundry and pack. Why am I the worst?
5:30am - Arrived at LAX one hour prior to departure. Good job, team!
5:45am - TSA line was short! I was able to sit down and write a last minute email to my sub regarding day's lesson. Again, why am I the worst? Should've done it the night before.
6:10am - At this point, Janice and I were wondering why we weren't boarding already. Something indistinct was announced on the overheard, but nobody looked frantic, so I Googled our flight status and all was well.
6:20am - The PA went on again, this time Janice and I stood up and moved closer to our terminal and found that our flight to Chicago had been canceled. We realized we had dismissed the original announcement as we entered the back of the line to rebook flights.
6:22am - I overhead someone mentioning a fire in Chicago.
6:25am - Being at the back of line actually had its advantages as they opened another terminal to field all the rebooking requests. Janice and I found ourselves the third guests in line.
6:27am - While in line, we started talking to the girl in front of us. She was on her way to a wedding. She said the only option was to fly into Milwaukee and drive 2 hours to Chicago. Janice and I began to deliberate our options.
6:30am - "I guess we could do that: fly into Milwaukee and rent a car." "But that would be so much time lost. Is it worth it?" *deliberation begins*
6:33am - "We already took the day off, we might as well go somewhere else." *deliberation continues*
6:37am - "So, Seattle or Portland?" "Ice cream (Molly Moon). Seattle." *deliberation complete*
6:40am - We finally got to the counter where the customer service agent was surprised to hear our change of plans. We asked for the earliest flights to Seattle, one was at 7:10am and the other at 9am. Of course we opted for 7:10am, but were told we had to RUN.
6:52am - It took a while to book everything since Southwest was going nuts over all the canceled flights (we didn't know the extent of the cancelations until later). The agent handed us a stack of boarding passes and receipts and we ran to the terminal about 200 yards down.
6:55am - The flight from LAX - OAK - SEA was boarding its last passengers. As I handed Janice her ticket, I saw we were on two different flights. AH! The agent messed up our flights and put one of us on the 7:10a flight and the other on 9am.
6:57am - I went to the gate to try and explain what was happening. I don't think I can fully explain HOW EFFING CRAZY THIS WAS. They told me to go to the other gate. I don't think they understood what was happening.
6:58am - I ran to the other gate, while Janice stayed at the 7:10am gate. COMMOTION!
6:59am - Nobody is understanding me. Every agent was like, "What a neat story! Let's try to get you on that flight. Just go back to the other gate (7:10am)."
7:00am - The PA goes off and says they're closing the doors. (FUUUUUU). I yell to Janice to just get on and I'll catch up.
7:01am - I get back to the 7:10am gate. By this time the agents at that gate and the customers they were assisting had caught wind of the whole situation. They let me go ahead and I finally get a working boarding pass. Everybody is giving me kudos for being so flexible and spontaneous. I'm just like, "please get me on the plane!!"
7:04am - I'm on the plane. We made it.
7:30am - After all the adrenaline dies down, I knock the eff out.
8:15am - Layover in Oakland. Janice had checked in her bag for the Chicago flight and the agent at LAX said they would try their best to get it on our new flight. Nope. Tried to explain our situation, but nobody understood what we were talking about at OAK.
10:50am - Wheels down, Seattle!
11:00am - Hoped to get lucky at the luggage carousel.
11:10am - Luggage stopped dropping onto the carousel. Filed a claim. The agent at that desk said that there was no way knowing whether the luggage had made it onto 9am flight.
11:15am - Got into line for the Southwest departures counter to book a flight back home. Realized we didn't have a flight home until we were on the plane looking at the stack of receipts/boarding passes the LAX agent handed us.
11:30am - The line was long and full of hostile people. Some *EXPLETIVE* yelled at me and Janice to move along and go to the empty kiosks and take care of our business there. UGH, not going to talk about this story because it's making me angry already. That lady was not a lady, she was a *EXPLETIVE*. End of story.
11:45am - The agent at the counter wasn't able to book our flight home because of all the problems Southwest was having with the Chicago thing. By now we had found out the cause of the cancelations: a disgruntled employee had set a FAA control tower on fire grounding 1,000+ flights.
12:00pm - Janice and I found a spot in the arrivals lobby of SeaTac and got comfortable. While waiting for Janice's luggage to hopefully arrive, I proceeded to:
- cancel our hotel in Chicago
- book a hotel in Seattle
- book a rental car
- book a flight home
- write a letter of recommendation for a student
1:45pm - Janice's luggage arrived with another flight! YESSSS.
2:20pm - With everything settled, we began our trip.
Woo, that was long—if you stayed with me this long, I commend you! Highlights next time? In the meantime, the trip was great. A++ highly recommend taking an unplanned trip.
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