The Story

This was my first time traveling during the holiday season, and boy was it a horrifying story that had a happy ending. I've told this story probably 10 times to numerous people already, and each time I get better at telling it. I think I've gotten the final version down, so here it is... in all it's glory (no exaggerations, I sware).

I had purchased my plane ticket home for Christmas and New Year's way ahead of time, sometime in the middle of October. I had planned ahead, and gotten the reservation (including the extra accommodation for Apollo that the airline needs to know ahead of time) taken care of. My ride to the airport that December 19th morning was Jaclyn's sister Leslie... who also happens to live in my apartment complex (no she is not my roommate and does not live with me). I had called her the night before and agreed on when she would pick me up the next morning.

I got up in the morning, finished packing, and had a few minutes to spare. I took my bags outside and waited in the parking lot with Apollo for Leslie to drive over from the next parking lot. 5 minutes went by. Then 10. I didn't wait for 15, and picked up the phone and dialed her. It rang and rang and then her voicemail picked up. I called again, and this time she picked up. Turned out she had turned her alarm off and went back to bed. By the time she drove over, I was already about 15 minutes behind schedule.

I've flown out of the St. Louis airport at least 3, if not 4 times in the past. It's never taken me more than about 20 minutes to get my boarding pass, check my bags if I have any, get through security, and arrive at my departure terminal. Thus I usually give myself about an hour ahead of time when I am flying anywhere. Well, that day I only had 45.

However, as Apollo and I got dropped off at the airport and walked through the first set of doors... I knew I wasn't going to make my flight. Had I been smart, I would've taken into consideration that it WAS, after all, only 6 days before Christmas... so there was going to be extra people at the airport on that Friday morning.

What I did NOT and almost COULD NOT possibly have anticipated was that the military base here in St. Louis chose that same day, December 19th, to dismiss all of their troops home for the holidays. As I walked into the airport, for every civilian I saw - there was a person dressed in army fatigues. The airport was 1/2 civilian, 1/2 military. Mathematically, this meant that the airport had TWICE the amount of people there that morning.

I started to wait in line, it was the same line to not only check-in your bags but also to get re-ticketed in case you miss your flight, and by the time I got up to the front counter... my plane was already gone. I waited 45 minutes in that line... and during that time I only got more nervous. Not because I felt that I still had a chance to make my original flight, but because of what I overheard someone else saying. I was talking to this guy, who was supposed to take off the day before, but had his flight cancelled due to there being too much ice on the runways. So that day, December 19th, the airport had EVEN MORE people there (due to the cancelled flights from the night before) than there would normally be. It didn't stop there. I continued to hear bad news that told of all the flights leaving St. Louis today being already booked.

Finally I got up to the counter, tell the lady that my flight had already left, and she asks me my final destination - and I replied, "Sacramento, California." She starts typing stuff into the computer to rebook me... and I added, "I'd be willing to upgrade if that would help." After a few seconds she asks me, "Would you be okay flying into San Francisco? I have a direct flight." The plan was to originally have my brother Will pick me up in Sacramento (where he was going to College, would've been a 10 minute drive for him). My mom would have to end up picking me up if I flew into San Francisco, but at this point I'll take anything I can get... ESPECIALLY if it's DIRECT. Hell, I didn't even know American Airlines even had direct flights into anywhere into Northern California (and I've looked for a long time, I dunno how I missed it). I told her "Yes!!! I'll take it!" and she said "your flight's leaving in about an hour."

An hour later I was sitting at the terminal, having called my mom and arranged for the pick-up... of which she was skeptical about because 1.) she has to drive over an hour to get to the airport 2.) she's not very familiar with the airport 3.) she had to leave work early. Anyways they started to board the plane: first class, business class, priority, group 1, group 2... then they stopped. 5 minutes went by, then 10, then 15. Finally I see someone wearing airport security uniform come driving up in a Segway machine, and go into the gate. The guy at the front desk finally gets on the loud speaker and says to us that someone apparently slipped and fell while getting onto the plane. Then I saw someone who was probably a doctor go into the gate, and about 5 minutes both he and the security guard comes back out. We finished boarding, and by the time we took off... we were about 20 to 30 minutes behind schedule.

At this point I should've probably called my mom. But I had flown before and pilots have always "made up lost time" when running late by taking shortcuts or going faster in the air. That's why I didn't call my mom, because I figured that's what they were going to do. Whether they attempted to do that or not, we didn't get to California any quicker. It took us the same amount of time to get there, if not even longer... because by the time we landed (and I factored in the time we were already behind schedule when we first took off) we were somewhere around 40 to 45 minutes late.

I want to take a few minutes to pause and tell you how lucky I was to even get out of the Mid West that day. While I was still sitting at the airport in St. Louis, I was watching the news and weather report on the TV screens and every few minutes they were talking about the "huge storm" that was headed our way East-bound. Airports that have already been hit (or are starting to get hit) have been delayed by an average of over an hour, and the storm was to last a couple/few days. Had I not gotten out of St. Louis that Friday morning, I probably would've been delayed a minimum of at least a day or two.

That was a problem which compounded immensely and had an exponential affect. How? Well, by being delayed meant that it would be December 20, 21st, or 22nd... any day getting closer to Christmas means more hell and more time spent in airport terminals. It also means fuller planes, and most likely MULTIPLE connecting flights just to get back to California. This continues to GET EVEN WORSE, as I am traveling with A DOG. Now, Apollo has a "bladder of steel" that can hold it in for 12+ hours... but putting him through a full day of travel is torture and hell for him. What would we do if we got stuck at an airport? I don't even want to think about it.

Getting back to the story (yes, it's not over), I had finally landed in California. No, I haven't been able to contact my mom and tell her how the plane was arriving almost an hour late of schedule - remember, this was a direct flight and I couldn't get signal while in the air. But I called her as soon as the wheels were on the ground and assured her that we were alright and that I was at the airport. I told her I would be about 10 minutes as I still had to pick up my checked bag. Easy right?

I was in the front 1/3 of the plane and so Apollo and I got off the plane and headed to the bag claim area. As I waited for my bag, I noticed more and more people from our flight showing up at the bag carriage but no bags were coming through. About 15 minutes later we hear an announcement on the overhead speaker: there was a bag-jam. Finally the bags started coming out, and eventually mine popped out as well. It took about 20+ minutes from the time I got off the plane before I got my bag. All-in-all, my mom had to circle the San Francisco airport for about an hour and 15 minutes before I was in her car and on the way home. She was glad to see me, and I said to her...

"An hour and 15 minutes (plus the hour it took for you to get here) is surely a hell of a lot less than 2 or 3 days from now.... or even sometime AFTER Christmas. Let me tell you my story..."