To make a long story slightly less long

Plan:
Buffalo to Charlotte.
Charlotte to Houston. Meet Alex.
Houston to McAllen. Arrive 7:00 pm.
Pick up car in parking lot (left by good friend Amy, who has been babysitting it all summer)

8:30 am EST Tried to leave Hamilton. Lost wallet.

8:45 am EST Left Hamilton.

9:35 am EST Arrived at border crossing. Despite my best efforts, I picked the slowest line. That’s always a bad sign.

9:50 am EST Got to the front of the line. Tense moments while no-nonsense border guard asked questions.

9:55 am EST Woo hoo! On our way. Dodged the bullet once more.

10:40 am EST Found post office. Informed by post office lady that, despite what her co-worker (at the very same office!) had told me the night before, the correct way of determining package size is not L+W+H, but L+Girth (which is L+W+W+H+H), so my package was oversized, so with the surcharge, it was $97 to ship. Big sigh. My total cost for riding my bike in Hamilton this summer is about $235 or so. Never again. Never ever again.

10:55 am EST Alex drops me off at airport and goes to park car. I get lucky by finding loose Smarte Carte, and carte monstrous amounts of luggage to US Airways and check in. Then I carte the rest to Northwest and ask if there’s some way I can partially check Alex in to save time. Nice lady goes to a computer and gets me Alex’s confirmation number! So I punch it in, get Alex’s tickets, check her baggage, and never once does anyone at Northwest (or US Air) ask for I.D.

11:15 am EST Alex arrives. Security guy informs us that nobody will let hockey sticks through the checkpoint. $#@%! Car is too far away to go put them back. No way to ship them. Only worth a total of about $100 anyway, both put together. Go back to Northwest. Star Buffalo Northwest employee Nicole checks the sticks FOR FREE. Ask and ye shall receive #1 :D

11:25 am EST Done with security. Kiss goodbye. Go separate ways.

11:3o am EST Board US Air flight headed to Charlotte.11:35-1:00 pm Sit at the freakin’ gate. To be fair, there was a nasty storm. To be even more fair, Alex’s flight had the same delay, but she got to hang out in the terminal instead of crammed into seat 17F. Reading John Wyndham’s Day of the Triffids. Good stuff.

2:55 pm EST Arrive at Charlotte International. Run for it, but too late by at least 10 minutes. Missed connection to Houston. Will not fly with Alex today, after all.

3:15-4:00 pm EST Star US Airways employee Will Clementson (who, incidentally, is studying mechanical engineering at UNC-Charlotte, where I did my first year of grad school) works like an adopted orphan in a Southeast Asian sweat shop to find me an alternate flight.
He gets me to Dallas then McAllen, but not until 9:45, nearly 3 hours after I was originally scheduled. It was the best he could do. Ironically, if I had not tried to make my missed flight, but instead immediately pushed some USAir terminal jockey to get me on another flight, I might have made a 3:20 flight to Dallas, then an earlier flight home. After all this, I said, “How about some lunch? I’m starving.” He said, “Okay.” and gave me a $10 voucher. Ask and ye shall receive #2 :D

Note: at some point during this day, I realized I had Alex’s keys for the Texas car and apartment in my carryon, as well as my own. It was not a fun realization.

4:00 – 4:40 pm EST

• Go to payphone. Realize my calling card has no minutes.
• Call to get $15 in minutes (“Okay sir, for $15 you get 190 minutes.” “really? I bought this card for $15, and it had 25o.” “Oh, wait. I must be looking at… yes, here it is… right, right… I had the wrong values. That’s 255 minutes for $15.”)
• Call Amanda and leave a message.
• Call Alex’s home and leave a message.
• Call my recently-re-set-up voice mail and set up my mailbox, etc., and then leave details on the outgoing message.
• Connect to Charlotte’s free (Sweet!) WiFi and email Alex
• Blog the details, just in case.

4:45 pm EST Eat at Carolina Pit BBQ. Turkey barbecue. mmm. Surf internet and check email compulsively while eating.

5:00 pm EST Realize my guitar is gone. Begin to panic and also dream of a new guitar.

5:15 pm EST Find the right office, reclaim guitar (thankfully not stolen; the panic was stronger than the new-guitar fantasies).

5:20 pm EST Decide to walk very quickly to the freaking end of A-concourse, where the only American Airlines desk is located, to change myself out of a middle seat in the freaking back of the plane, for my Dallas – McAllen flight later on. Yup, American. Used to be Continental, so now I’m up to 3 carriers in one day. I ask for an exit-row seat on the aisle. It works. Ask and ye shall receive #3.

5:40 pm EST Arrive at C3, sweating buckets. Board US Airways flight going to Dallas. I’m in 25F, which is the very last, non-reclining, lavatory-smelling row on the plane. When people in the next row forward recline their chairs, young children should look away. It’s indecent. Plane scheduled to take off at 6:15.

6:15 pm EST Not taking off. Finish Day of the Triffids and start on The Chrysalids. Very thirsty.

7:00 pm EST Captain comes on intercom and tells us, with clear irritation, that we are still sitting at the gate because the potty-cleaning company has not come to clean the potty, yet. He notes the name of the company. I think I see people writing it down.

7:25 pm EST Taking off now.

8:00 pm EST (7:00 PM CST) Alex now arriving in McAllen without me.

8:30 pm EST Very, very, very thirsty. When asked what I’d like to drink, I say “lots of water.” Attendant gives me 1.5-liter bottle. Ask and ye shall receive #4 :D

9:10 EST (8:10 pm CST) Flight from Dallas to McAllen scheduled to leave. I’m still somewhere over Northeast Texas.

8:20 pm CST Plane lands. I am still in the back freaking row.

8:25 pm CST Tell attendant at gate my American flight was scheduled to leave 15 minutes ago. Ask what can be done. Answer: nothing else going to McAllen until tomorrow morning. He doesn’t have access to info about American Airlines flights, though; he’s with USAir. I check the board… AA 1317 DELAYED UNTIL 9:15! Woo hoo!

8:30-8:40 pm CST tense ride on tram thingy to A-gates. Followed the signs, and then inside the train realized that the track is just a big circle, with trains going in both directions. If I’d ignored the signs and gone in the opposite direction, I woud have gotten there twice as fast.

8:45 pm CST settle down to wait, the only happy person within 50 meters.

9:15 pm CST not taking off yet.

9:40 pm CST Plane takes off.

10:50 pm CST Plane lands in McAllen. I have to pee so bad my eyeballs are turning yellow. Glad to see Alex. Glad to see urinal. Leave airport. Hit in face by wall of 95-degree massively humid air. Apparently it rained earlier. Walk in a leisurely fashion to car. Think it looks pretty empty, considering all I brought from Hamilton. Realize my luggage didn’t come through at 7.

11:15 pm CST Luggage not coming. Filing a report with American is way easier than with Continental. Go to get tacos.

11:25 pm CST Meet David, from Wichita Falls, at Taco Palenque. Met him in Dallas at the gate. Nice guy. Alex likes his accent. We have delicious excellent Palenque tacos.

12:00 am CST or so… Get home, fall into bed, ignore moldy condiments in unplugged-all-summer fridge. Ignore kayaks in hallway and living room. Ignore possibility of brown recluse spiders hiding in blankets.

2:25 pm CST next day: Luggage arrives.

THE EIND!

(all times approximate)