Unfriendly skies part 2

So I flew back to Washington on Dec. 29th. It was honestly a trip from hell and my lack of faith in the airline industry was completly renewed.

First thing was checking in. It went smooth for the most part except for when I was told I was checked all the way to Spokane and then found out later that I wasn't and didn't have a boarding pass.

After that Mom and I walked to security and saw a woman completly FREAKING out at the ticket counter. I believe they were calling security as we were walking by.

At security I was given the riot act for all the film I carry and was treated like shit by some 4'11 fucker who tried to tell me that I didn't have the right to a handcheck of my film because they were all 400asa (which they weren't but he wouldn't listen). I had to use my "authoritative dog mother voice" and he finally rolled his eyes and gave it to another agent. 4 out of 5 times I don't have any problems but then there is always the guy who has to show his "size" and problems ensue.

After that I get to my gate and am all ready to go. We get on the plane and I see my luggage still on the cart. Now mind you, we are suppose to leave in like 8mins and the plane is loaded for the most part. So I'm watching my luggage (and there was others as well, but not alot) and I'm seeing all these handlers leaning on it and looking at it and then shortly after, there are emergency vehicles pulling up. Now I'm a paranoid traveler as it is so I was almost ready to call an attendant to see what was up. I thought they were gonna blow it up or something. The King of the hill episode where they blow up Hank's smoked turkey because a dog gave an alert on it kept playing in my head. Soon it was revealed that there was a medical emergency which ended up being a false call.

So after that fiasco, I get an alert from Orbitz on my phone that my plane (which is supposed to take off at 2:39pm) will not be leaving until 4:30pm. Shortly after that, the captain announces that we are delayed because there is a plane in Chicago (now pay attention) that needs a crew. The crew is at an airport that has no direct flight to Chicago until much later that night. The plane in Chicago has all 300 passengers on board. Our plane was marked as the one to be delayed to wait for the needed crew to fly to DC and get on our plane so we could take them to Chicago. We were told that we had 5mins to get off the plane before two international flights landed at the otherside of our gate and immagration officers would not let us debark the plane. So as I'm trying to get off the plane because I've also realized that my connecting flight will be gone by the time I get to Chicago AND I have no ticket from Seattle to Spokane, they shut the doors and say that the planes landed early and we are now stuck. So for two hours I sat on a plane with nasty recycled air and an edited version of the DaVinci code.

We finally left and got to Chicago and I had already rescheduled my ticket over the phone and got a better flight and all was good. The plane blew a tire when it landed I think because it hit REALLY hard. I fly alot and know it's not suppose to come down that hard. My next flight was only 30mins delayed but the flight was TERRIBLE. I honestly thought I was gonna die. The plane went through a funnel system over the Dakotas and it actually dropped down and was shifting from side to side and the captain actually yelled at the flight attendants to take their seats immediately. It was scary and I was also sitting next to a guy who weighed 400lbs (seriously) so I had no room to grab anything or whatever. Thank god it only last about 10mins and we landed shortly after. So I'm thinking it's finally over and I can get my luggage and go to sleep at Miss Mitch's. Wrong. My luggage never made it to Spokane AND the lady was completly unhelpful. I was panicked because ALL my gifts, clothes, meds, etc were in those bins and bags. Uhg. I finally got it the next day at 3pm. It had been in Seattle at Alaskan Air where I would have been if I hadn't rescheduled my flight.
So there you have it folks.....my travels for the holidays.