The Kid got on the plane
And that's the last I heard. I took Megan to the airport yesterday. I got us there two and a half hours early. I was very proud of myself. There was no place at the counter for us. All of the lines at the counter had identifications that did not fit us. There was domestic e-ticket, which I tried, but they said I was in the wrong line and they pointed over there. When I got "over there" the line was for international flights. There was first class, but it was very long and I was pretty sure we weren't first class. Finally I flagged down a frenzied attendant and she put us in a very long line. I could not tell what counter that line was going to, but she said to stand there so we did.
30 minutes passed. 30 more minutes passed. The line never moved an inch. I tried to call the airline and I told them what we were doing. They hung up on me. When it got to be 45 minutes before the flight was going to leave, I flagged down our frenzied attendant and she pulled us out of the line. We went to a closed position and a fellow very slowly wrote out a boarding pass by hand. Their computers were down. I assumed that meant the flight would be delayed, but no, it was still listed as on time.
With 20 minutes before the flight was supposed to TAKE OFF, we were finally headed to security. We got thru fairly easily, but of course, by this time Megan was starving. I tried to give her cookies and crackers, but she said she needed real food. Her idea of real food was Burger King. We got in line at Burger King. We waited and waited and waited. We got her food three minutes before her flight was scheduled TO TAKE OFF.
The door to the plane was magically not closed. Actually there was a long line of angry people waiting to get on the plane and when I jumped to the head to tell them I had an unaccompanied minor, more than one person rolled their eyes and swore under their breath. They let the long line of angry people get on ahead of Megan and then she seemed like the last person to get on the plane. Then they let three more people get on the plane. Then those three people got off the plane and they let two other people get on the plane. Then the door closed. The plane sat there and sat there and then they dragged it away from the gate and it sat a short distance away from the gate for a long time, then it wheeled out to the runway and sat in front of the runway for a long time, then it slowly wheeled out of sight. I have to assume that it took off, because no one called my cell phone to tell me to go back.
At the very beginning of this airport adventure, Megan was very concerned that we couldn't find where to check in and about the passage of time--what if she missed her flight? She was totally stressed. I tried to calm her down and said to the effect, "what's the worse that could happen--you miss your flight and you have to leave two days later. What have you got a date that you can't stay two extra days?" Big mistake. Megan was so excited about the prospect of staying two more days that I think she was actually pissed when she made the flight. I guess we should have beat her more, so she'd want to go home. I mean we do have record breaking heat--horrible oppressive heat, but we're just too much fun to want to leave.
For her last night on Monday, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe--I thought that would be a very touristy type of thing to do. They told us the wait was 30 minutes, so we waited. An hour later I was ready to leave. We were all starving by that time, but now we had invested an hour so everyone else wanted to keep waiting. Shortly they showed us to our table. Our server was really cool and he warned us that a 94 person party had just put their orders in, so he'd keep our sodas full, but we'd probably have a long wait for our meal. How long can it be, 30 minutes I thought. We've already waited this long. An hour and thirty minutes later we got our meal (except for Adam who waited another 10 minutes). The wait was awful, but our server was so nice and fun, and the food was excellant (to me--Mel wasn't impressed). It felt like being at Disneyland. I mean it was not space mountain, but pretty close.
Man, it's a good thing Megan came to visit, because I never would have waited otherwise and space mountain was really, really cool. Both times. Worth more then an hour's wait. Both times. The wait was only in the hot sun the first time. Isn't it great to remember the cool lights and the exileration of the roller coaster much better than the fleeting memory of waiting in the sun.
30 minutes passed. 30 more minutes passed. The line never moved an inch. I tried to call the airline and I told them what we were doing. They hung up on me. When it got to be 45 minutes before the flight was going to leave, I flagged down our frenzied attendant and she pulled us out of the line. We went to a closed position and a fellow very slowly wrote out a boarding pass by hand. Their computers were down. I assumed that meant the flight would be delayed, but no, it was still listed as on time.
With 20 minutes before the flight was supposed to TAKE OFF, we were finally headed to security. We got thru fairly easily, but of course, by this time Megan was starving. I tried to give her cookies and crackers, but she said she needed real food. Her idea of real food was Burger King. We got in line at Burger King. We waited and waited and waited. We got her food three minutes before her flight was scheduled TO TAKE OFF.
The door to the plane was magically not closed. Actually there was a long line of angry people waiting to get on the plane and when I jumped to the head to tell them I had an unaccompanied minor, more than one person rolled their eyes and swore under their breath. They let the long line of angry people get on ahead of Megan and then she seemed like the last person to get on the plane. Then they let three more people get on the plane. Then those three people got off the plane and they let two other people get on the plane. Then the door closed. The plane sat there and sat there and then they dragged it away from the gate and it sat a short distance away from the gate for a long time, then it wheeled out to the runway and sat in front of the runway for a long time, then it slowly wheeled out of sight. I have to assume that it took off, because no one called my cell phone to tell me to go back.
At the very beginning of this airport adventure, Megan was very concerned that we couldn't find where to check in and about the passage of time--what if she missed her flight? She was totally stressed. I tried to calm her down and said to the effect, "what's the worse that could happen--you miss your flight and you have to leave two days later. What have you got a date that you can't stay two extra days?" Big mistake. Megan was so excited about the prospect of staying two more days that I think she was actually pissed when she made the flight. I guess we should have beat her more, so she'd want to go home. I mean we do have record breaking heat--horrible oppressive heat, but we're just too much fun to want to leave.
For her last night on Monday, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe--I thought that would be a very touristy type of thing to do. They told us the wait was 30 minutes, so we waited. An hour later I was ready to leave. We were all starving by that time, but now we had invested an hour so everyone else wanted to keep waiting. Shortly they showed us to our table. Our server was really cool and he warned us that a 94 person party had just put their orders in, so he'd keep our sodas full, but we'd probably have a long wait for our meal. How long can it be, 30 minutes I thought. We've already waited this long. An hour and thirty minutes later we got our meal (except for Adam who waited another 10 minutes). The wait was awful, but our server was so nice and fun, and the food was excellant (to me--Mel wasn't impressed). It felt like being at Disneyland. I mean it was not space mountain, but pretty close.
Man, it's a good thing Megan came to visit, because I never would have waited otherwise and space mountain was really, really cool. Both times. Worth more then an hour's wait. Both times. The wait was only in the hot sun the first time. Isn't it great to remember the cool lights and the exileration of the roller coaster much better than the fleeting memory of waiting in the sun.
posted by KathrynVH @ 3:27 PM
1 Comments:
At July 26, 2006 at 6:50 PM,
Megan said…
Yeah the NW airlines are so stupid. THEY LOST MY LUGGAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GGGGRRRRRRRRRR And of course they lost the big one. But I had so much fun out there. I didn't really care for the Hard Rock chicken. I think when I went there with girl scouts last time I got the kids meal and I liked their chicken. But it was pretty icky. Thanks for having me. It was so much fun :)
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