How To Turn 50 Minutes Into 10 Hours

OR

Glass Half Full (Of Milkshake) 

Being a natural worrywart, I like to get things done early and approach planning with caution. It has almost always served me well; this time it came back to bite me. On a recent event in Atlanta, I didn’t know the exact time we would be done on Friday. I was up against the deadline for booking flights, so I booked an 8:45 PM return knowing that would definitely give us time to wrap up everything and make it to the airport. Boy, did it.

5:00 AM^*: Hit the gym in the hotel. At dinner two nights before, the restaurant had a burger called The Heart Attack. The Heart Attack consists of a burger topped with a double order of bacon and fried onions, a fried egg, and, instead of a bun, it is served between two grilled cheese sandwiches. Oh, and a pretty hefty side of fries. Anybody with any sense knows that eating The Heart Attack is a terrible idea, but it seemed like they put it on the menu as a personal challenge to me. Challenge accepted! I “won” (ate all the fries too), but I didn’t feel quite right the next day. So I ran 3.5 miles on the treadmill and lifted some weights, successfully burning off maybe one of the grilled cheeses and half of the fries. I feel better about myself though.

7:00 AM: Meet Joel and Marques in the meeting room to test all our equipment again and run through the agenda for the program that day. Everything looks good.

9:00 AM – 1 PM: Final day of the meeting goes off without a hitch. Striking and packing the equipment goes off without a hitch. Smooth sailing so far. Great first half of the day! You know how happy the people on the beach are at the beginning of Jaws? That’s us walking out of there.

2:00 PM: We check out of the hotel and decide to go to the airport to try to get on an earlier flight. No dice. Time to dig in – Marques gets a milkshake, Joel gets a giant plate of soul food, I get a chicken salad sandwich.

3:45 PM: We hit the Sky Club. This is the first time I have ever been in one of these, and it is kind of great. Walking in there from the regular terminal in the airport is like when it changes to color in The Wizard of Oz, but maybe better. I feel like munchkins singing and giant suckers would get old a lot quicker than plentiful power outlets and free wi-fi.

4:30 – 5:00 PM: Eat roughly my body weight in crudité.

5:10 PM: It seems really dark outside. This can’t be good. I’m just going to keep watching the College World Series and hope for the best.

5:11 PM: The DirecTV just went out.

5:20 PM: “Attention customers, the airport is closed. No flights will be arriving or departing due to the weather. We will let you know when we have more information.” Ugh.

6:15 PM: The airport reopens, and I see a couple of planes leave. At first I think “They sure are lucky to get out of here so quickly.” Then I realize they were sitting on the runway for the last hour and a half. Oof.

8:00 PM: Time to board. All signs say we will be on time, but the people piled up at every gate say we won’t.

8:20 PM: Our flight has been delayed until 9:15 because we are waiting for our crew to arrive from Richmond. 30 Minutes, no big deal.

9:15 PM: The automated voice keeps announcing that we will be leaving at 9:15, and we should be ready to board 35 minutes prior to take off. I hate the automated voice.

9:30 PM: Delay is moved back to 9:45, but still no sign of the crew. Not looking good!

9:45 PM: Flight is delayed until 11:45. Last chance to eat something. The sugar side of my frosted mini-wheat biscuit wants ice cream, but the wheat side says to eat real food. This internal debate rages until Marques decides he wants another milkshake. That sounds like a perfect compromise to me. The line at Ben & Jerry’s is ridiculous, but we take our place at the end anyway. It’s not like we have anything else to do. After waiting in line for all of about 10 seconds, the guy behind the counter shouts “Does anybody want a milkshake? Come to the front of the line.” So we got to cut in front of about 35 people in the milkshake line. I haven’t known Marques for very long, but this is EASILY the happiest I have ever seen him.

10:00 PM: That milkshake was awesome. Probably not worth being in the airport all day and night, but it definitely took some of the sting off.

10:00 – 11:00 PM: There is a guy on the PA saying stuff like “Um, I think the plane y’all are waiting for might have just, um, taken off.  That probably means it might be here in like, um, an hour or something”. I might be delirious, but this is hilarious to me. It is like a scene from a movie or a skit on SNL. I am going to mentally file it away just in case someone from a movie or SNL ever asks me for a hilarious idea. It seems like I might be the only one at the gate enjoying it though.

11:15 PM: Finally time to board. We start walking down the aisle of the plane and realize we are at the back. Not like “near the back”, the dead last row. I didn’t even know they went that far back. Marques has the window seat, but it doesn’t have a window. It’s just a wall seat. At least we are on a plane.

12:00 AM: Take Off

12:50 AM: Touch down. And that’s how a 50 minute flight becomes a 10 hour day at the airport. At least we got our milkshakes before all those suckers in line.

~ by jackmcdonald919 on July 6, 2011.

Posted in On the Road