Posted by Colleen on Feb 8, 2010 in
Adventure,
Airline Adventures,
Lost Okay so I’m a week late but hey, it’s my birthday today and I’m determined to not do much at work today lol so, I figured I’d share a bit about the trip to Hawaii. Since it may get a little bit long, I’ll break it up into a few parts. Here’s part 1 and it’s going to be the most boring part, to be honest. But if you return within the next few days, I promise to have better tales of beach, drinking, and debauchery. And I’ll even throw in a little bit of Lost.
So I left Raleigh on Thursday morning on a 8:35am flight. My connection was at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport in Texas. Everything went smoothly except we landed early and they had no gate for us because other planes were delayed a bit going out because of the weather. It was a bit of a mad dash from my arrival gate to the next terminal and my departure gate, but I made it in time for the last boarding call. This flight was awesome because I had the entire row to myself and there were TVs on board. I slept a bit for each flight, which was also awesome since I got about 3 hours sleep on Wednesday night.
Got to LAX (or LA X just to keep in line with the Lost/dork theme of the weekend) early and had to change terminals from American Airlines to Delta. I got a bit confused because LA X is the devil. I was stumbling around all groggy because I had just woken up and was still exhausted but I managed to find the Delta terminal and went through security with no problem.
That was the last time that day that I had no problem with anything.
So I got there with about 1.5 hours until my flight was supposed to leave, which was 2:45pm. Althought it was like 1:15pm in California, my body thought it was 4:15pm and I had yet to eat that day. So I found a California Pizza Kitchen by my gate (which wasn’t difficult as every single thing there was a CPK) and stuffed my face with a tuna fish sandwich. Made my way to the gate, where lots of people were already waiting. Called my parents and grandparents to tell them I was all safe and sound and as I’m doing that, I hear an announcement that my flight is going to be delayed 20 minutes. “No problem,” I figured and I texted Jay and reasoned, “We’ll make up for that time in air and I’m sure it’ll all be fine.” Ha, yeah right.
After a little while, it becomes a 30 minute delay. Then a 45 minute delay. The attendants at the gate tell us that there’s an “in-air CPU problem” that they need to fix before we can fly over the water. Of course there is! So I’m at this point getting a little bit worked up but hey, 45 minutes will still get me into Hawaii by 7:15pm and that’s still dinner time so I guess it’s okay.
Then it becomes an additional hour delay. They fixed the problem but now they have to run all the engine tests and that’ll take up to an hour. We can’t be on board during those tests. Now I start to get upset. I won’t get into Hawaii until like 8:30pm at this point and I’m dead on my feet from lack of sleep. I tell Jay to just go and eat dinner without me. He refuses. I tell him he’s stupid. I hang up the phone and go back to freaking out.
So this brings us to about 3:45pm-ish right now. They tell us that we’re going to be delayed until at least 5pm. I go up to the gate attendants and one says the next flight out that she can get me on is at 5:55pm. I say that I don’t want to risk getting on a later flight if ours is scheduled for 5pm. She tells me go come back at 4:30, because that’s when there will be another update. Great. Oh and the best part? They gave us $10 food vouchers for our troubles that did not even work on cocktails. WTF? Don’t they realize that the way to calm angry people is to give them money to buy a friggin’ drink?
So I’ve been around the airplane-delay-block a few (dozen) times before. I know that when you get meal vouchers for a 2.5 hour delay, it means that you’re going to be there longer than 2.5 hours. I reacted accordingly, as I tend to do in life. So I head over to the California Pizza Kitchen again and do my best Jack Shephard impression, which included crying to my waitress over a double Jack Daniels & Diet Coke. Then I ordered a Garlic Chicken Pizza to go just for the sake of spending Delta’s money.
So I head back to the gate at like 4:20pm because I see a crowd has started to gather again. Our plane’s pilot was making an announcement that the engine check had found that there was a problem with a valve that controls cabin pressure. Our new estimated time of departure was 7pm PDT. I was on the phone with my mom at that point and totally bust into tears. I knew I was embarrassing myself but I was so tired and frustrated and all I wanted to do was get to Hawaii and go to sleep that I couldn’t help myself. I went up to the desk to ask them what my options were. The pilot had seen me all teary-eyed on the phone during his announcement that he came over to me to ask me if I were okay. “No, I’m not okay!” I cried at him. He ended up having them put me on the 5:55pm flight, which was incredibly nice of him. I apologized for the outburst profusely and thanked him even more.
I went over to my new gate and ended up eating the entire Garlic Chicken pizza by myself. Which, as you will learn in my Friday story, ended up being a somewhat good thing.
We took off on time at 5:55pm. My first flight, which was originally supposed to leave at 2:45pm, ended up leaving at 6:00pm. It took us 6 hrs 20 minutes hours to get to Hawaii from LA X. It was supposed to only take 5 hrs 45 minutes to get there. There must have been some bad winds or they were letting the other plane land first.
One final story: I ended up falling asleep on and off for about 4 hours of that flight. The other part of that flight, I was reading the first of the True Blood books, “Dead Until Dark.” When the plane landed and I got up to stretch before they let us off, I noticed that none other than Carrie Preston (wife of Michael Emerson) was sitting two rows behind me. Carrie Preston plays Arlene in the TV show True Blood (the red head who has been married a bunch of times). I just thought that was funny. Jay texted me that Michael Emerson was waiting at the airport so he wasn’t surprised that Carrie was on my flight. He said that he was hiding in the corner though so he and Clif did not disturb him.
At this point, it was like 10:15pm in Honolulu and my body felt like it was 3:15am. I was beat. After we got to the Halekulani hotel, I went out to dinner with Jay, Clif, Jack and Cyndi (Jay’s mom). I know I wasn’t much fun though. I could barely keep my eyes open and didn’t eat anything other than Jay’s pickle (That’s what she said, now shut up). Went to bed almost immediately upon getting back to the hotel.
Friday, however, is when the fun REALLY started…
Tags: Delta, Hawaii, LAX, Lost
Posted by Colleen on Jan 12, 2010 in
Airline Adventures Dear Delta,
Go fuck yourself.
Regards,
Colleen
Tags: Airline Industry, Delta, economy, Orbitz, recession
Posted by Colleen on Dec 28, 2009 in
Airline Adventures I posted this on YuBlog.org but I wanted to repost it here for posterity and all that jazz.
So on Christmas Day 2009, a man who was on a government watch list (but not on a “no-fly” list) and brought to US officials’ attention just one month ago unsuccessfully attempted to ignited a “crotch bomb” on an international flight from Nigeria to Holland to Detriot, Michigan. If you haven’t been following, here’s the recap: This man had put an explosive chemical called pentaerythritol into a condom and then sewed that into his underwear. About 40 minutes before landing, the man went to use the restroom and 20 minutes later returned to his seat, pulled a blanket over himself and lit the explosive. I’d tell you the rest of the heroic stuff but I’ll save that for the movie. It had a happy ending though, trust me.
As a result of this latest attack, TSA (America’s Transportation Security Administration) has come out with a fun new set of rules to basically punish all of us innocent travelers. Yes, I say punish. Why? Because these new measure don’t so much protect us any more than before but just offer more restrictions. The new security measures include the following:
- Passengers are no longer allowed to get up for the last hour of an international flight and on some domestic flights.
- For the last hour of a flight, passengers are also no longer allowed to have anything on their lap, including a book or electronics.
- Physical inspections of all carry-on bags at the gate on all flights and “pat downs” of passengers concentrating on the “legs and torso” area. [Source]
- Air Canada is restricting passengers to only one carry-on bag instead of one carry-on bag and one personal item. US airlines have been recommended to adopt the same regulation. [Source]
TSA just doesn’t get it. Neither does the government or President “I’m Too Busy Vacationing In Hawaii to Rush Back When There’s a Suspected Terrorist Attack” Obama. I half-jokingly said the other day, “I’m not sure that anyone making the rules even flies on airplanes regularly like us ‘common’ people do.”
These new rules feel like the gut reaction of a new parent who is at their wit’s end and just making up rules to deal with one situation instead of the overall problem. Here’s my response to each of these new regulations, corresponding to their listed number above:
- At the most basic level: How is this going to stop a terrorist from just blowing up an airplane 2 hours before landing? Even on a flight to Detroit, US soil starts more than one hour prior to landing. Just saying. Other things to point out: What if someone is legitimately ill and needs to be in the restroom? A businessman flying into Detroit yesterday caused a huge panic after he became belligerent when flight attendants dragged him out of the restroom at that one hour mark. What if a passenger is diabetic and suddenly needs to inject themselves with insulin during that last hour? Are flight attendants going to hand them a glass of orange juice and say, “Hope your sugar level raises!”? What if an elderly person has a bladder or prostrate problem? What about a pregnant woman who feels ill or a woman who may have a UTI or her time of the month? Can you imagine asking a flight attendant to use the restroom and when asked just why it was such an emergency when there was still 58 minutes of flight left and you simply pointed to your crotch area? I’d be cranky as heck if I had to wait what’s really an hour and a half after you land, get to a gate, deboard, then find a little girls room.
- Again, how is restricting passengers from even being allowed to read a book going to stop the problem? Keep in mind: After the economy went south & people stopped flying because airlines were overcharging them like woah, airlines had to cut back. Some airlines removed their in-flight TVs and games and starting selling beverages, food, Internet, blankets and pillows. If you can’t use the blankets, pillows, and Internet that you paid for on the last hour of the flight, then you’re going to want to read or listen to an iPod to stay entertained. But…you can’t. That makes for some cranky passengers who paid a lot of money (let’s face it, prices went back up again). Oh, but that shouldn’t get in the way of our safety, right? A passenger who lights himself up in the back of a plane before the attendants even get back there isn’t going to be worried that he had to put his copy of “The Lost Symbol” away.
- I am not even going to touch this one. No pun intended. But patting down the torso/legs won’t stop crotch bombs.
- Finally, the one that hasn’t happened yet is making me the angriest. So they want to limit carry-on items to one. This means we’ll have to start checking more bags. Delays aside, if you’re not flying Southwest or JetBlue, I hope you’re wealthy because airlines now charge AT LEAST $15 per for the first checked bag and even more for the second. If TSA regulations are going to force us to check more bags, then airlines need to stop charging for the first checked bag. It’s just too expensive.
I do have some suggestions on what can work to prevent or at least lessen the threat of an attack:
- If TSA is that worried about our safety, instead of punishing travelers, why not put US Air Marshals on board on international flights? Create some more jobs, help the economy, and make us feel protected. After Colin Ferguson shot up the Long Island Rail Road in the early 1990s, police officers were encouraged to ride the train for free so theoretically there would be more cops on board to take action if there was ever a problem.
- This is just a suggestion, but if a passenger is in the restroom for more than say 15 minutes on a flight, perhaps doing a little inquiry on the bathroom situation is wise.
- If airlines are going to go down to one carry-on bag per person, take away the checked baggage fee for the first bag.
- If security has to be tightened prior to the flight, then so be it. It’s sorta alarming that TSA has such doubts about people getting through the already strict screening process (no liquids over 2 ounces thru security but you can buy them after the checkpoint, no shoes, no jackets or sweatshirts, etc.) that we have to still be restricted in air.
This is just all my humble opinion as someone who flies more than 15 times a year and has dealt with all the airline and airport hassles over the last 3 years that you can imagine [see here, here, or here for some examples]. Don’t continue to take away our privileges because we’ll stop flying as often. And when we stop flying so much, our economy will take another hit. And when that happens, then the terrorists have won.
Then again, maybe I’m just being whiny. Maybe sitting and talking to the person next to me for the last hour of my expensive flight isn’t such a bad thing, either. Perhaps I’ll end up sitting next to someone who wants to buy out nuDia.tv and YuBlog.org and then I can have enough money to buy my own private jet to fly on. Hey, it could happen.A Frequent Flyer’s Humble Advice to TSA
Okay, so let me start by saying that I do have a video we made during our travels to San Diego last night, but the Internet where we are right now is stolen borrowed and therefore, not strong enough for me to upload it yet. I’ll get it up though (that’s what she said). In the meantime, please accept this small token of entertainment. Southwest Airlines goes 3 seats across and since there were 4 of us traveling (Jay, myself, Jana, and Clif), Clif ended up sitting in the aisle seat for the row across from us. So we spent some time on the flight adding fun things to different pictures of Clif in a Perez Hilton-style. Jay saved some to us computer but I can only find one of them, but it’s funny enough. It’s from last year’s Comic Con:
Oh yeah and I got pulled aside while boarding the plane yesterday so they could test my BRAND NEW bottle of water (bought AFTER security within the airport terminal) for alcohol or whatever. Yeah. Hilarious, right? Meh.
Posted by Colleen on Apr 17, 2009 in
Airline Adventures This may be one of the greatest news stories ever. Or at least one of the best kind to read when you’re in a blah mood.
So apparently four pythons (Stimson’s Pythons for all you snake aficionados out there) got loose on a Quantas Airlines flight from Alice Springs to Melbourne, Australia. They were a total of twelve baby snakes being held in the plane’s cargo hold. Two flights were canceled as officials searched for the pythons and fumigated the aircraft, but none of the rogue snakes were found, either dead or alive.
Well, I guess if you’re going to have a canceled flight, four baby pythons running around is a pretty damn good reason. The snakes were small (6 inches long) and probably did end up getting killed in the fumigation, but can you imagine if a snake (for reals) dropped from the ceiling where the oxygen masks are or you reached for a SkyMall magazine and got a free pullout surprise? I hope no one brings their small pets on any Quantas flights for a while…
Tags: Quantas Airlines, Snakes on a Plane
Posted by Colleen on Oct 20, 2008 in
Airline Adventures Here’s the final installment of my 3-part miniseries about experiences traveling to/from NY-NC.
The one thing I always maintain when flying is that I won’t relax until I’m actually on the ground in my destination. This isn’t a safety thing, it’s an actual “LaGuardia is the worst airport in the history of the world except possibly JFK” thing. I cannot even begin to count how many times I’ve been on a plane, taxiing towards the runway for an on-time departure, when there’s been some sort of problem - 98.3% of the time from LGA’s end - and I’ve been stuck sitting on runway or tarmac for a while.
This is what happened to me today. 7am flight. Early in the morning. Should be no problems. Get to RDU this morning and successfully still have a ticket (
yesterday’s incident had not haunted me at 6am this morning, thankfully). We board at a reasonable time and start taxiing towards the runway in order to take off at our scheduled time. Then suddenly, we stop.
Pilot gets on the PA and goes, “Well, it seems that LGA is having ground delays, as usual. We’ll be delayed here as a result for around 20 minutes.” It’s never a good sign when the ‘fashion seat belts” light goes off. We wait. 20 minutes later, we’re told that we have to wait another 10 minutes to call us back and let us know what time we can be rescheduled to depart. Naturally. The flight attendant makes a hilarious comment at this point to us, remarking, “Gotta love NY. There’s always delays, even early in the morning.”
During this 10 minutes, something interesting happens. Now, I’m sitting in seat 1F, which is the window seat in the very first row on the right side of the plane. This isn’t the most ideal seat in the world but being that US Airways bumped me off this flight that I booked back at the very beginning of September because they didn’t know that their own plane actually took off on Saturday, I had no option in my seating. However, I would have missed what happened next had I not been sitting here. The flight attendant gets a phone call, distinctly says, “I understand” and unbuckles her seat belt. Then she gets up, opens the door to the airplane and lets the pilot out.
Yes, the pilot got out of the plane.
The man sitting next to me and I look at each other and go, “Well, that can’t be good.” We can’t see what he’s doing on the left side of the plane, but then I see him go around to the wing on the right side of the plane. He wipes the condensation off of it with his hand and then comes back on to the plane and tells the flight attendant, “We’re good.” At this point, I’m wondering if “we’re good” means “We’re not going to crash if we ever do take off” or “We’re actually going to get this plane in the air.”
About a minute later, he tell us that we’ve got a departure time of 10 minutes. Finally - but only 40 minutes late (and it’s sad that one has to consider “only 40 minutes” a true blessing when flying) we take off.
To her credit, the flight attendant kinda rocked. She reduced the price of water, soda, and juice to $1 from $2, alcohol from $7 to I believe $6, and gave us free coffee and Biscoff (yay! only thing I miss about Delta are those cookies man). I was confused when she said that coffee and tea were free and she told me and the man next to me that “Since we waited 40 minutes on the runway, it’s the least I could do. Plus, ya’ll probably could use some caffeine. I know I could!”
So yeah, another trip to Raleigh in the car, another unnecessary airline drama over. I had a great trip - the whole not stressing about having to work thing really worked out well haha - and I’ll post more about that later or tomorrow morning.
Posted by Colleen on Oct 19, 2008 in
Airline Adventures I’m leaving to go to dinner and see a movie with Jay in a few minutes, but here’s a little update on my apparently not-dead airline curse. If you missed my story yesterday, I had a bit of a problem getting to Raleigh from LaGuardia Airport because there was a “mechanical problem” that was apparently undetected until they decided to do a maintenance check of my plane as we were boarding. We had to wait around, not knowing if we’d be able to leave NY or not, until they found us another plane to take us here.
Well, I go to check in for my 7am flight tomorrow morning around 11am this morning and there’s a problem with my confirmation number. My reservation apparently did not exist. Upon calling customer service at US Airways, I was told that because I failed to make my flight out of New York, my tickets for my return flight were cancelled by US Airways. First, she made it sound like I hadn’t checked in on time for my flight there, which was bull because I checked in at 11:56am Friday for my 11:55am flight Saturday. I explained to her exactly what happened to that flight and said I’d scan a picture of my boarding pass from LGA and email it to her as proof. She put me on hold for several minutes. When she finally came back, she had put me back on my flight back to NY.
Thank God it all worked out, but seriously, how ridiculous is that? Like, are they going to have to find spots for all of us on that flight from yesterday because we all lost our return trip reservations or am I just the cursed one? And how on EARTH did they make a mistake not knowing that one of their planes actually FLEW SOMEWHERE?!
I really cannot be late to work at 11am tomorrow morning, so think happy thoughts for me to NOT have any problems tomorrow morning!!
Posted by Colleen on Oct 18, 2008 in
Airline Adventures,
Ramble/Ponder/Rant And the curse continues.
I’m sitting here at LaGuardia, paying for Internet, because my flight is delayed indefinitely. 11:55am flight and it’s a beautiful freaking day outside. Today was supposed to be my non-stressful day where I didn’t have to work at all for once until Monday morning and could finally have a non-work-filled weekend with Jay. And it really did start in a relaxing manner. Got up, watched “Grey’s Anatomy” online (it was actually quite fabulous), had plenty of time to get ready and leave with 2 hours to spare.
Then I hit standstill traffic on the Cross Island Parkway and was delayed for over 30 minutes. It finally cleared up and I went to the bagel store in Astoria that Jay loves and got a ton of bagels. There was a long line, which I expected, so no surprises there. I get to the airport finally and the parking lot is closed, of course. I manage to get a pretty good spot in a different lot and run inside to security. It’s like 11:10am at this point.
Here’s an actual somewhat humorous part: The family traveling ahead of me on the security line managed to EACH set off the security metal detector AND all have to have their bags checked for having liquids that were too big, etc. No, they were not black or Arab. They were just plain ignorant dumbasses. The girl was arguing over contact solution. I felt like screaming at her, “Let it go! Buy the travel size for a fucking dollar when you get to where you’re going, bitch.”
But moving on to the funny: The guy looks at me strangely after he checks out my bag. I know exactly what’s up and I go, “If you’re wondering who would bring bagels on a plane, it’s me.”
He goes, “Yeah, I was actually. Why?” I explain that I’m bringing NY bagels to Raleigh, where they don’t have good bagels and I promised to bring them down. He started laughing a lot and let me go through.
So I get through security and into the terminal and I find that my gate has changed, but no one had told me this originally. So I trek all the way back from Gate 7 to Gate 1 with my heavy bagel-filled bags. It’s 11:30am. I see that we’re not boarding yet and McDonalds is right near the gate, so I go get a fountain Diet Coke (who can resist fountain beverages, seriously) and get back to see boarding has begun. I get in line and I see people coming back off the plane. I inquire why and some gal tells me that it’s because they said something was wrong. The woman at the gate tells us that they’ve been informed by the crew that there’s a “maintenance problem” and they have to wait for maintenance to come and look at it and then fix it.
The woman sitting next to me is an older version of me. She immediately started bitching about how she’s been here for 2 hours and is positive that the plane has been sitting here for at least that long, so why on Earth would they only decide to check it NOW, 20 minutes before take-off? She’s got a fabulous point. And I’d bet my next plane ticket that they didn’t check the plane earlier because they didn’t want to do work before they absolutely had to. Not to get controversial, but that’s the fucking problem with this country today. No one wants to do work, to work hard. No wonder the economy is how it is. There’s a bunch of lazy assholes in this country. I work 7 days a week and I have nothing to show for it, yet someone who doesn’t work at all and has no drive or desire to can just open their hands. After 9/11, people wanted things and they got it, regardless of whether or not they could pay for it and now we’re all paying the price. I’m talking about everyone, lest anybody think that I’m picking on the lower income people. You invest your money in the stock market, it’s still paper money. You get caught spending money you don’t have in the first place on second homes and what not and then whine about how life’s not fair. I see people who come into my job with worker’s compensation injuries and some continually make excuses to not be able to go back to work. God forbid you got into an elevator with crutches or had to limp from your desk to the bathroom. God forbid you have to go back to working for a living.
You’re either lazy or you’re greedy. Greed is the head of a Wall Street corporation who still takes his $500,000 bonus for the year regardless of all the jobs that have been lost because of how shitty you ran your company. Greed is constantly taking, taking, taking and not putting back into society. And I’d say that 90% of the people I know and am associated with are NOT like that. So it’s not all hopeless, but there’s a large faction of people in this country that are like that and it’s not fair to the rest of us who are losing money, jobs, etc. And as I’ve bitched about before, we all treat each other like complete shit. Even the ticket agents here are being nasty over the loudspeaker and I have not heard one person - myself included - who has confronted them in a nasty way (or at all) yet.
So at least this delay hasn’t yet brought on a fit of crying and swearing yet I’ve just decided to take it out on my fellow Americans. The update since I began writing this post about 45 minutes ago is that they’re going to try to change planes. We have to wait for them to get another plane, then bring it to the gate, then have the crew change planes themselves, then prepare the cabin, then maybe get it checked out by maintenance to see if it’s good to go, then we’ll get our boarding time. Joy. I love spending my supposed-non-stressful-Saturdays waiting in airports for a problem that could have been detected hours ago to be solved now at the expense of everyone else.
Maybe I’ll go update “
The Plane Truth” while I wait. Or go network and try to find someone who lives/works in Raleigh now to find me a job there so I can move and not have to ever wait around in airports twice a month again.
Posted by Colleen on Aug 19, 2008 in
Airline Adventures As if the obvious wasn’t enough, here’s another reason why Delta is a mess of an airline. Last night, I received my weekly email with Delta’s fares. Although I’ve
publicly sworn off flying Delta many, many times, the promise of a $69 ticket each way was almost too much temptation to resist. (Back story: This afternoon, I was looking into possibly flying to Raleigh this weekend - I know it’s not really practical at all, but let’s face it; being back on LI makes me restless to go do things far away from LI.)
So anyway, here’s a screen cap of the email, which was sent at 9:26pm on Monday, August 18:
Please note that it says, clear as day, that flights from JFK to RDU for travel this coming Saturday to next Monday or Tuesday are $69 each way.
So, I figure, “Hey, why not just check it out? Don’t have to buy a ticket, just look…” Here is what happens when you follow the rules - magically, the trip is $339. I may consider myself more of a writer than an accountant, but this makes no sense. I try one more time, thinking perhaps I screwed up the dates or something. Still:
Upon further investigation on the website, I learn the following:
So…it’s $129 each way to/from RDU from either JFK or LGA? That’s significantly different from $69 each way. And if the site just wasn’t updated as of me writing this (it’s almost 1am early Tuesday morning/late Monday night), then why even send out an email if the website isn’t updated?
Nice job, Delta. Nice job.
I had the craziest dream last night and I have no idea what it means at all, though I should probably just take it as it is:
I was returning home to New York (JFK airport for some strange reason; I usually fly out of LGA) from what I think was Raleigh (minor detail I forgot after waking up). I had a flight that left early in the morning and the last time I looked at my watch in my dream was 6:45am. I fell asleep. I woke up and I was on a JetBlue flight (which I guess is why I was supposed to be at JFK, since it doesn’t fly to LGA), but it was strangely quiet. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something. I was in the front and like, “Eff this! Let’s get off this pliz-zane!” I looked at my watch and saw that it said 9pm, but thought not much of it, thinking that maybe it was 9am & my watch was just spazzing. I left the plane. It was sorta set up like the “Soarin’ Over California” ride at Disneyland - very wide.
I walked off and into the airport and immediately got confused. It wasn’t JFK. I kept walking, this time a little more, “Ummm WTF?!” Then I see a huge sign on the wall: “Welcome to Los Angeles International Airport.”
Naturally, I’m a little bit panicked to find out that I have not landed in New York, but LAX in California.
So I run back to the plane and am magically not stopped by security or anyone and I go back to my seat, as they’re in the middle of announcing that we were unable to land at John F. Kennedy Airport and had to fly to LAX instead. (As Jay pointed out when I told him this morning, “So…they couldn’t land in NY, so they…flew to California?”)
As one can only do in dreamland, I find a free customer service representative as soon as I get into the terminal, who looks and sounds suspiciously like my Aunt Carol, who I only see like 4 times a year. I explain to her that I’m part of the NY JetBlue flight and I needed to get home. She took me to this back door - almost secret entrance - to a ticket counter that also doubled as a line at a grocery store. Yes, it was still set up in LAX. I explained to him the situation - realize that it’s actually only 6pm since it was PDT time - and he looks up my next flight options back to NY.
At this point in my dream, I’m magically also on the phone with Jay, explaining what’s happening to him. It was the same situation as when I returned from Comic Con; a Wednesday and I technically didn’t have anything to do until the following Monday. So I suggest to the ticket agent/grocery store clerk that I can wait til the following morning to get a flight out (hey, when in Rome Los Angeles…). Jay and the Aunt Carol look/soundalike try to shush me up, but I insist the whole time, “It’s fine. I don’t have anything to do the rest of this week and Jana lives in Burbank, she can maybe come pick me up! I’ve never seen LA!” Jay keeps insisting he’ll call his Aunt Cindy or some other relative he has in LA or even Ralph & Stevi while the Aunt Carol look/soundalike is hushing me up, like I’m an idiot for not wanting to rush back to NY on a red-eye flight.
The man tells me there’s a flight leaving very soon or else there’s another one at 11am the next morning. I’m all about calling Jana in Burbank to show me LA/introduce me to David Duchovny ((sigh)), but just as I’m about to find out what flight I am taking, I woke up.
So, what does it mean?
