Alarm was set for 4:10am, grrrrrrrrrrr!!! Of course, with my 'fear of not hearing the alarm' psychosis, I woke up at 3:55, turned on the coffee maker I set up for myself the night before and shuffled to the bathroom. Alarm went off so I shut if off. Coffee maker was on but not producing coffee. Jiggled the basket ever so
just slightly and 8 oz of hot coffee splashed all over the table and my flying clothes carefully laid out. Towelled up coffee, not sure why as housekeeping could have done it...
Dayna knocked on the door - she said there was a terrorist threat in London, something about liquid explosives. A press conference on CNN from London didn't give any more info so I sent her to wake up Dharia and set about getting myself ready ASAP.
We headed downstairs at about 4:25 and checked out - the front desk staff had no idea there was an elevated security risk, even though there was a TV about 5 feet away...
At 4:35 I realized, hey, the shuttle we ordered to LAX was late. At 4:40 we were getting nervous. Dharia called the dispatcher and said someone better be here in 5 minutes.
At 4:55 and older Lebanese, Middle Eastern-ish man in a (non-livery) Toyota SUV pulled up mumbling something about the driver not answering his phone and we hustled into his stinky, ass + cologne smelling vehicle. Whatever. I loudly voiced to him how we paid a deposit, etc. and how we were PISSED. The rest of the 40 minute ride was quiet. Before we got to the terminal, he asked us to pay in the car and I said we shouldn't pay at all as we were supposed to be picked up at 4:30. He argued that he did
get us there before the 7am flight (it was 5:30am). Dayna got out of the truck and gave him some money - no tip. Dharia later clued me in that he might have been screwed, accepting money with no taxi license, if it had been a normal security day. But it wasn't.
On the curb we immediately could see what kind of day this was going to be - hastily printed signs were posted everywhere stating we would not be able to bring lotion, toothpaste, shampoo, water, coffee, cream, perfume or any liquid toiletries in the terminal. We hurridly picked through our bags and packed stuff in the checked luggage or threw away any banned items. We said goodbye to our checked pieces and got in another line to go up to the security area. Most of the employees weren't really aware of what the London situation was about...it was relatively orderly although we all looked a bit dazed.
Dharia had to be wanded and padded down through security as she had spine surgery in the past and set off the machines. No probs, though.
We found the gate and settled in, eating our bagels we bought the day before and chatting about being inspired by our crafty TV experience.
At 6:50 it was announced that our flight had been cancelled and that all passengers with a connection shoud get in line to re-book. The new flight was at noon. Five hours away. F-I-V-E H-O-U-R-S.
We got in The Line. Behind us came a harried woman, distraught that she had to throw away her toiletries. We were very supportive and explained that we all had to do it...etc. Let's call her Extrememely Annoying Lady. In front of us were 2 young people, a dark haired boy/man wearing a wool hat, scarf and jacket (I thought, he must be hot), he will be called Mini Jack Black. Like the real Jack Black, only not animated or funny and a wee bit shorter. And he was with a girl. Let's call her The Girl.
Now, Extremely Annoying Lady was very talkative and chatty. Which was fine. For awhile. She was going to Albany, connecting in Newark (as we all were) to her brothers', I believe in Vermont. It turns out her husband is a scientist and is pimping his new book in Boston. I think it is a text book and probably isn't really pimping it...you get it... Dharia worked at the same publishing company...blah blah blah. I was starting to tune out EAL's whiney voice so I didn't catch all the details.
After I came to the realization that we would be in The Line for a
very long time I went to knit in some seats across the terminal...far away from EAL. I was probably gone for about 45 minutes and I am not exaggerating, The Line did not move. By then D&D were sitting on the floor knitting and a nice lady from NJ had come over chatting about knitting. Let's call her OT, as she is an Occupational Therapist. Her and her family were travelling from Hawaii on vacation, trying to get back home. EAL was being loud, trying to get through to a Continental agent on the phone, calling and leaving messages for her kids ("Hi, this is
Mommie..." her kids must be at least in their 30's), complaining out loud that this is unbelievable, etc. You get it...you have come across people like this. You want to strangle them after 5 minutes. My Dad would not have made it more than one minute.
OT lady brought over her knitting or rather, busy work, as she was not very proficient but was just passing time, which is admirable. She was a very nice lady and we all chatted about Early Intervention and other things. EAL was laying it on thick, bitching and moaning. We all kind of shifted away from her but she would get right in your face and complain about awful this was for her. AHHHHHHHH!
Mini Jack Black and The Girl were going to Edinburgh, and were very calm - a little too calm as they were definately going to miss their connection. Meanwhile EAL was freaking that she'd ever get to Albany. Mind you, she could just have GONE HOME as she lives in LA.
Mini JB and The Girl were pretty quiet and we all chatted about the DIY taping, etc.
Dharia chatted with a new character, we will call CatwomanGiraffe (she wore a tee with a cool Julie Newmar Catwoman and had a cool Giraffe tattoo on her leg). She was an art student in Montreal visiting a friend in LA. Dharia taught her to knit a little and we all calmly chatted. What else were we supposed to do??
As we struggled up to the desk, EAL had drifted ahead of us, as well as another lady loudly complaining into a cell phone. I asked the cell phone lady is she was in line (which meant, "If you think you are going to cut into this line we will stab you repeatedly with dull knitting needles") and she removed herself. EAL had also shifted in front of us and I kindly said , "I don't mean to be rude but we WERE before you in line". Which she apologized and got back in her place.
Trying to keep a positive attitude while sitting on the floor of a terminal isn't easy. Knitting helped. Our newly forged TV smiling skills came in handy. But Extremely Annoying Lady was like the frantic woman who needed to be bitch-slapped to re-gain her composure. I eventually stood up, pulled her aside and told her that no one here wants to listed to her complaining, that we are all in the same boat and are trying to make the best of a bad situation. She nodded and from then on tried to make polite conversation. Phew.
It turns out that CatwomanGiraffe is the ex-boyfriend of a boy in the gaming industry that Darius and Dharia had luch with in LA not 2 months earlier. BIZARRE!
Not long after that we got to the front of the line to Continental employee Tim, who tried to help us get home. Of course I lost my boarding pass for the connection but he quickly told us to get to gate 60 to a flight leaving shortly for Cleveland. I heard the words "3 first class seats" pass his lips and I was excited to be maybe be rewarded for all this stress by the Karma police. We literally RAN to another gate 200 yards away to find out we had about 15 minutes to spare. We were assigned 8D, 9D and 14C. Fine, whatever. No first class. We boarded the plane with no idea if we even were booked on a flight into New England...anywhere. Whatever. Forget about the luggage.
I sat next to a man and his son. They were quiet, thankfully.
There were all kinds of problems with having to take stanby passengers off the plane after they had been given seats because the actual owners of the seats had been stuck in security for hours. That was scary.
We finally took off at about 11:30-ish.
The flight was sucky - cramped, stressful, whatever. I had a stomach ache and my head was killing.
We landed at Cleveland and immediately had to RUN to what seemed like the FURTHEST gate from where we landed. There was a flight leaving in 15 minutes for Providence and we could try to make it. When I say run, I am not embellishing. There was running on moving sidewalks, up and down escalators, through the entire terminal. No shuttles, no handicapped golf-cart-thingie, just plain old, running. And I wasn't wearing my sports bra. Dharia lead the way to the gate where another very unhappy Continental employee tried to book us and the other 3 passengers from the LA flight. She couldn't find me as having a connecting flight and eventually just threw the boarding passes at us and said "it's up to the flight attendant if you can get on" and that was that. We got on a tiny plane with no tickets, and I plopped down next to the thinnest person I could find. After about 20 minutes, my breathing returned to normal and I chatted with the man next to me (we didn't even exchange names) about flying, etc. He was from Randolph, a rep for a company that makes printing plates for packaging, etc. Pretty interesting. We talked about the Red Sox, planes, LA, etc. I felt like a total slob, as most of the people on the flight were business and we looked pretty beat - I had no make-up, dirty pants, bad hair but by then I didn't care.
The 2+ hour flight went really quickly. There were thunderstorms all over New England and Providence was about to have downpours. The landing was a bit bizarre; we circled, a really tight circle around Warwick and the guy next to me said,"watch this...". The guy behind us said "this is going to be cool...". We got really close to the ground and I could see the runway perpendicular to the plane. We suddenly sharply turned right and almost immediately the wheels touched down, pretty hard. UGH.
We were thrilled to be on the ground - lightning all around. Dan was stuck in downpours coming to get us but we needed to claim our luggage as lost anyway, which took 5 minutes. Dharia and I said goodbye to Dayna and we jumped in the Element as soon as the sky opened up.
Poor Dan didn't know who to listen to first - we were both relaying the entire trip as quickly as we could (and he just wanted to hear the Red Sox score on the radio).
A quick ride to Worcester and a stop at Moe's for Buritos and we were home. My Mom stayed with Ethan who had just fallen asleep. He barely woke up when I told him I was home but he smiled in his sleep so that was good enough.
Darius came to get Dharia and we blurted out as much as we could to my Mom and the guys while we scarfed down the only decent food of the day.
Wow - finally back home. What a trip.
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