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March 18, 2005
Standby...
I have been trying, in vain, to get to L.A. all morning, flying standby. So far I have been bumped 4 times. I'd like to think I'll get on this next one, but Vicki says the chances are slim. Traveling standby sucks. I've had four hours sleep and been sitting here at O'Hare since 5:30AM. My flight was supposed to leave at 6:22AM. It's now 10:35AM. All the flights are over booked and there are a shit load of revenue standby passengers ahead of me on all the flights. At this point I am totally kicking myself for not buying a ticket.
This would be a great people watching experience, only I don't like people, so it's totally wasted on me...
Read on for more...
...
Okay, now I have been bumped... 6 times? Shit, I'm losing count. I think it's 6. It's now 12:50PM. The next flight is at 3:05PM. If I miss that one I think I might go mad. I could scream right now, but that would probably be a bad thing to do, so...
AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!
Okay, that felt good, in a virtual sort of way.
Supposedly I have better than a snowball's chance in hell of getting on this next flight. I'll believe it when it happens. I firmly believe at this point that I am doomed to roam this god forsaken place, wondering from gate to gate in a tragic and vain attempt to board a flight to Los Angeles. Hell, at this point I'd like to just get within 200 miles of L.A. Everything is over sold. There was one way to get to L.A. that looked good: It involved flying to New Jersey, then to L.A. I can't even get to Long Beach or Ontario. All those flights would require me to fly to Dallas, and all Dallas flights are, naturally, oversold.
If I had thought about it (the fact that it's Spring Break for a lot of people), I'd have bought a ticket a long time ago. As it is I am on the top of the non-rev list. Unfortunately, that means dick right now, since there are so many paying passengers who have been bumped due to oversold flights.
Seeing as I have so much time until my next disappointment, I figure there are two ways I can stay awake: booze or caffeine. Naturally I choose booze. But not for the reasons you might think (believe it or not). You see, I desperately need sleep. Now, if I load up on caffeine, I won't sleep on the plane (assuming, of course, that I get on a plane). However, if I load up on booze, I can pass out on the plane and be fresh as a rose (albeit a burned out, stinky, drunken rose) when I get to Los Angeles (assuming I get to Los Angeles at all). There is one problem with this plan: The Sapphire Martini I just ordered cost $11.00. There is no way I can afford to feed myself booze at those prices. So I when this one martini runs out I am doomed. I set my phone's alarm to go off at 2:30PM just in case writing this crap down can't keep me occupied long enough to keep me awake...
...
Fuck! It's only 1:11PM. Time might fly when you are having fun, but it crawls like a frozen slug when you are bored out of your mind. I can't go online (because this airline sucks and there is NO wireless net access in the terminal...) and I can't do any programming since I am running a beta version of the OS and the dev tools didn't install right.
I wanted to hack on a perl script but since I can't access CPAN I can't install the modules I need to do what I wanted. I do have OpenMCL installed, so I could play with Lisp a bit, but I don't know if I am lucid enough to get anything useful done. Still, it's better than nothing...
Arrgg! I don't have the extra Xemacs packages I usually use installed on this machine yet (since I installed the latest OS beta). So I can't use SLIME to do Lisp hacking, and I'm not good enough with Lisp to do anything useful without a good dev environment!
There are precious few electrical outlets (one that I have found) available. Naturally that one outlet is being hoarded by geeks with gadgets. Alas, I am not one of them, so my battery is burning out, slowly but surely. I have a spare, but still. This sucks. Tiger's power management is MUCH better than Panther, so my power is lasting longer than it used to, so that's good.
...
I canceled my T-Mobile all-you-can-eat GPRS since I didn't use it and It was ~$20 a month. Now I'm wishing I had it. Shitty GPRS net access is better than no net access at all.
...
Okay, I know now that my mind is slipping. I am sitting here amid the full-diaper/stale-fart smell of the people around me listening to The Clash on my iPod and have this urge to just start sing along at the top of my lungs. I can even see myself doing it. So much so that it's hard to not do it. And that vision makes me want to laugh. Out loud. Which would probably not be a good thing, either.
May be I should go walk around a bit. But I'm so tired. I want to sleep, but these damnable seats are incredibly uncomfortable and seemingly built to keep people from sleeping, like those bus stop benches with the bumps and ridges built into them to keep homeless people from using them to sleep. Are we no better here in this airport than bums on a bus stop bench?
I guess not.
No power, no internet access, and $11 martinis. Are we living in the bloody dark ages here? What kind of savage, backwards society is it that treats travelers so poorly? Fleece the suckers if they need sustenance and cut off all modern communications. No electricity or comfort for you!, weary traveller. Get thee hence, and don't complain, least we find an extended search of your person necessary for the greater good. It's all for the sake of the Homeland, you know...
Speaking of which, they have these big door sized poster things here proclaiming the glory of the US-VISIT system. You know, where they fingerprint and photograph non-US citizens, all to protect the Homeland? They have the lamest tag lines: Keeping America's door open and our nation secure. It's enough to make me retch.
Fuck, I've seen snow thaw faster than the time is passing. I think I will go for a walk...
...
It's now 3:40PM. I have been bumped yet again. The next flight is only oversold by 3-5 people, but there are 14 revenue non-revs waiting for this one, so there are 14 people who will get on before I do. I'm ready to buy a fucking ticket and damn the expense (and it would be an expense; something like $500-$700 for a one way ticket). The thought of missing my own bachelor party makes me ill.
There are 4 more flights I might be able to get tonight. After that the only way for me to get to L.A. in time is to buy a ticket. So much for having dinner with Mat tonight. Maybe, if I can even get out there, we can go out on Sunday.
I'm exhausted and really pissed off. This whole day has gone from bad to worse, and it's not over yet. What good are flight benefits if you can't actually get on a flight?
At this point I'm hoping to just be able to buy a ticket for tomorrow morning, preferably on a different airline. Not that the experience will be any better, I'm just really bitter right now.
...
It could be worse: I just overheard a man at the check-in counter asking if someone could help a girl who has been stuck as a standby passenger in O'Hare for two days! She's had to stay at hotels for the last two nights, getting to the airport at 6AM each day and getting bumped from each flight. Wonderful service, eh? Poor girl looks ragged. I hope they get her on her way. She came out here from Ireland and has been stuck in the machinery of the airline system for two whole days...
...
So, it's now 5:56PM. I have been at O'Hare for over 12 hours. I have been bumped from every flight to Los Angeles. I'm listed on yet another and I fully expect to be bumped from this flight too. I am going to stick it out and see if a miracle occurs, and if not I'll go home and see if I can buy a ticket for a flight in the morning.
I have hit that zen like point of burn out where you just take what comes. I remember this feeling well from Litmus Green recording sessions, only I'm sober right now. If I had a drink or three in me I'd be in that exact state of mind from the old days. In some sick way I kinda like and miss feeling like this; it meant we were doing cool shit and had to bust out the jams to get things done in time. No sleep, too much booze, bad craziness: Too much fun. I miss that. Still, realistically speaking I don't think I could keep up anymore. But it might be fun to try.
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Damned if I didn't make it. Second to last flight. It's 7:36PM and we're at 38,000 feet. I was so deliriously happy to get on board. I have, literally, the last seat on the aircraft, 40J, a window seat. Not that I'll be looking out. It's dark and I can barely keep my eyes open. I haven't eaten since early this morning and have no energy at all. But I made it...
...
I actually bought one of those nasty snack boxes they are selling on the planes now. I feel much better now that I have something in my stomach. Cruising along, listening to The Clash. I can't wait to land and get a beer with Lare. Maybe we can still do something with Mat? Who knows?
This is one of the longest posts I have written, I think. It matches what has been a really long day. And it's not over yet. But at least it got better toward the end.
I always like a happy ending, don't you?
Posted by ed at March 18, 2005 11:51 PM
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