Chaos for Christmas!

After spending an entire weekend on hold, waiting to get on the next possible flight out of the DC area, I was finally able to arrange a flight for late Monday afternoon. I arrived at the airport extremely early. I'm talking 1:30 am! A full 14 hours before my flight was scheduled to leave! I didn't want to wait another four hours or more in line, and I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to reschedule, in case my flight got canceled again.

When I arrived at the ticketing counter, they were about to close up for the night. I quickly ran up and asked if I could check in for my flight for the next day, and the lady asked where I was flying to. I replied that I was scheduled to fly to Los Angeles, connecting through Toronto, and then showed her my itinerary.

Her initial reply was, "Toronto? Oh, we can't do that. We can't put you through an international connection, it's way too expensive for us! We just don't do that!"

"What?" I asked. "You're kidding, right?"

"No." came the reply. "We just don't do this. I have never seen a domestic flight with an international connection. It just doesn't happen."

I'm usually a pretty calm guy. But this was starting to get to me. I'd been waiting nearly three days to catch a flight so I could spend Christmas with my family. I'd finally booked a flight that I thought was sure to work. And now here was this lady telling me that she couldn't do it.

I tried to explain to her, as calmly as possible, that I had been booked on three or four different flights, with all of them getting canceled. I now had a flight booked, and I was going to get on it. I told her I didn't care how much it was going to cost them, I didn't care if it had an international connection, I was getting on this flight!

She said she'd go get her supervisor, to ask her about it. The supervisor came, looked at it, and immediately said, "Yeah, it's ok."

Simple as that! The supervisor explained that if I didn't get on this flight, I wouldn't make it to Utah 'till after Christmas. This was the only way possible for me to make it home.

The lady, still not comfortable with the thought of me making an international connection, rudely said, "Well I can't book you on this flight anyway. You have to go to the international ticketing desk, and they just closed for the night."

I left, annoyed at the lady, yet relieved to know that my flight was going to work. I walked around to the international counter where there was already a handful of people waiting. The sign on the counter said they didn't open 'till 4:30, so I found a nice piece of hard airport floor, rolled out my Thermarest sleeping pad, and tried to get as much sleep as I could.


I didn't sleep very deeply. I'd wake every thirty minutes or so, keeping an eye on the slowly increasing number of people arriving at the counter. At about 3:30, a line started to form. I got my things together and got in line.

Fourty-five minutes later, an elderly Asian man approached and told us that we couldn't form a line there. "What? This is where the line was yesterday, what do you mean we can't stand in line here?" we all wondered. He insisted we move, and that we wouldn't be helped unless we left and waited somewhere else.

At this point, the woman in front of me became rather irate. I guess I can't say I blame her, and I'm kind of glad she was there, because she was saying what we had all been thinking. We had been waiting in lines all weekend, getting every flight possible canceled, and here we were, we could taste the freedom of that boarding pass, and Mr. Asia with an attitude was telling us to leave!

Nobody wanted to give up their prime line space, so I offered a suggestion. We could all line up next to the wall, away from the counter. That way we could all keep our spot in line, and anyone else that came up we could tell them that we were in line, and have them fall in behind us.

This solution seemed to work, and when the ticketing counter was finally opened, we simply moved the line back up to where we were to begin with. It was here that we hit another snag. We were informed that only people who had an original flight scheduled for Monday would be helped. After they were all through, they would then begin helping the rest of us who had been waiting for the last two or three days!

So much for our prime line space!

A few more disgruntled line waiters voiced their opinions to no avail. We were forced to wait yet again. Fortunately there weren't too many "original flights" ahead of us and thirty minutes later, boarding pass in hand, I was waiting in line for security! This line moved much faster however, and I was through faster than you can remove your shoes, belt, wallet, phone, keys, liquids, jacket, and sanity, and on my way to the boarding gate!

Something strange happens to your body wen you're running on minimal sleep. For whatever reason, you just can't shut down. I found a row of empty seats, dropped my bags, and laid down to try and get some sleep. It was now about 6:00 am, and for the last two and a half days, I had only gotten about six hours of sleep!

Yet despite my exhaustion, I could not sleep. I think I did fall asleep for about thirty minutes, but after that I was wide awake. I decided to get up and go wait in yet one more line. I know, crazy, right? This line was for customer service. After about thirty minutes of waiting, I found myself asking the guy behind the desk if I could be put on stand-by for the next flight to Los Angeles. "Haha", he laughed, "You know there's going to be at least a hundred people on that list, right?"

"Yeah", I replied, "but put me on it anyway."

I headed over to the next flight to Los Angeles. A direct, non-stop leaving in about one hour! I salivated at the possibility of getting on this flight, knowing full well that it wasn't very likely.

I sat down, staking claim to a seat right in front of the overhead television displaying the flight details. A list of stand-by passengers briefly flashed across the screen. "Wait a second, did that say 'Wells R.?'" I waited for the list to reappear. There I was, number three on the list. Three! Maybe there was hope after all!

A little while later, as they were beginning to board the plane, my name had jumped from 3 to 6. Then to seven. My hopes of getting on the plane were dashed to pieces. The number of remaining seats had fallen from ten, to five. Then to four. My name jumped up to six, then down to five, then three again.

I continued to watch the monitor as more and more people got on the plane, and the number of remaining seats steadily declined to three, then two, then one. Only one seat left, and I was still number three.

I began to wonder when the next flight to leave for LA was, and a couple minutes later, I heard my name over the loudspeaker. As I approached the service desk I was informed that there was only one seat left, and I was third on the list. The two people in front of me however, were traveling together. I was told that if they decided to split up and travel separately, I would have to try for the next flight. If they wanted to stay together and pass on the one available seat, it would fall to me.

I stood next to the wall as these two people sat in their seats for what seemed like eternity, while they deliberated over their predicament. Meanwhile, I kept praying that they would pass and leave the seat to me.

After eternity ended, they ultimately decided to pass on the seat, and I was now just five hours from the warm California sun, and soon to be 2,600 miles from two foot deep snow, bone numbing cold, and the incessant turmoil of the Washington Dulles Airport!

I arrived in California later that evening. I was able to get on the shuttle to the hotel, and even though the hotel bed was very welcoming, I dropped my bags and headed over to Disneyland, the greatest place on earth that isn't an airport! After what seemed like one very, extremely long day (Friday to Monday) I was finally here.

And even though I had only about eight hours of sleep in the last 80+ hours of my life, I wasn't even tired!