Melrose, MA 2020

[Greg]

Then there was the travel.

It was smooth for the most part. I drove down easily from Raymond to SJ in tQ's car. The only hiccup being the bathrooms were locked up at Casa de Fruta and they were closed for cleaning at the Chevron next door. I still made it easily to the Gilroy gas station.

No one was at the airport so I made it quickly through TSA at San Jose. My question about how do they identify you if you wearing a mask was easily solved. You take off the mask. 

Had a quick lunch at the Billy Goat Tavern at Midway airport which is one of those Chicago staples, better in theory than in actuality. Got to sit in the exit row by myself on the way to Boston. Quickly got my rental car and drove to Melrose. I avoided the expedient and expense of having to get an EZ Pass by using roads that didn't have tolls.

My luck crashed on the way home.

I got up early and had to put almost 2 dollars worth of gas in the tank to fill it back up. No one was the Dollar Rent a Car station so I left my keys in the car and then went to catch the bus to Terminal B for my flight. I dined sumptuously on two Croissant breakfast sandwiches from Dunkin Donuts as I waited on my flight. 

We did the usual boarding in groups of ten to get on. The middle rows were all left empty. Since I had a low number, I got to board early and again snagged the exit row all to myself. It's all about the extra leg room in the exit row.

Then the captain came on to tell us that we would be delayed fifteen minutes because they had discovered a bird strike and they need engineering to check it out. I assumed bird strike meant a bird had hit one of the engines or near to it. We waited.

The wait of fifteen was concerning to me because I only had forty minutes to change planes at Midway. The fifteen minute delay meant that I now had only thirty minutes between flights. Still doable but sweat inducing.

The captain came on and made the dreaded announcement. He had good news and bad news. The bad news was that engineering wasn't going to open until 9:30 am due to the fact they were short staffed owing to father's day. It was currently 6:45. The good news was that there was a plane just few gates over from where we sat. As a matter of fact, it's the plane on the left in the picture above.

We all disembarked. We waited in the terminal as the flight crew got on the plane and got it ready. There was no lining up by numbers this time. We were just in a long queue and got checked back on the plane. Checking my watch, I now saw that we had used up the forty five minutes in our game of musical planes. I had a little hope though. Flight times usually have some padding in them. Maybe we could squeeze in a few minutes between landing and departure?

Sure enough, the pilot gunned it to Midway. We were going to get in twenty minutes early. The captain announced that all the planes had been alerted we were coming and they were holding the flights for us. Woo-fucking-hoo.

There was some tension getting off the plane because a bunch of passengers had to get to a completely different terminal at Midway to get there flights. The request went up to let them through first. One woman screamed through the aisle, shouting Social Distancing and get out of the way because she needed to get off first. She said this until she ran into the back of the people also needing to get off first.

I switched my phone off airplane mode and was immediately greeted by the announcement that I had new boarding passes for an additional two stops of flying. Southwest had cancelled my boarding pass for the San Jose flight.

I ran to that gate anyway. I got there with twenty minutes to spare. The plane was still parked at the end of the jetway. The attendant at the gate said I had to go to the check-in desk in order to get the boarding pass. Or at least talk to the people at the check-in desk because he could do nothing about it.

There were already people at the check-in desk with same predicament. Tensions were high. Voices raised. One women was desperate to get home for father's day. The attendants were saying there was nothing they could do. There was no way for our baggage to get to the plane in time and passengers had to fly with their bags. Sorry. Go away. I mentioned that it was their fault for putting us on a broken plane in the first place. Grrr Grrr mumble mumble.

I walked away thinking about getting on the plane to St. Louis and then waiting four hours for the plane to San Jose. Grr Grr mumble mumble. At some point I figured maybe there was a direct flight later from Midway to SJ. I looked at the departure board and sure enough there was. It left in two hours would get me to San Jose two hours earlier than the route through St. Louis.

I walked back to the gate to see about getting on that flight. When I got to the check-in desk, my fellow missed travelers were still there. And in my absence, Southwest had changed their mind and were going to put us on the plane to San Jose that was still sitting outside. What?! Yes, it was dumb luck that I walked back to the gate and was fortunate to be the last person to be given a boarding pass. I grabbed the pass and scooted over to the gate before someone changed their minds. 

I was the last person on the plane and low and behold the exit row was still empty. I took it. Minutes later the doors closed and we were on our way. A few minutes into the flight the captain announced that our bags were also on the plane. Woo-fucking-hoo.

It was an easy flight to San Jose, mainly because I just had to sit there. Grabbed tQ's car and drove home to Raymond. I rushed because I had a Zoom meeting to get ot.