Bad Day

Believe it or not, there are days I just don't want to get out of bed.

It's true.

Lately, it's been on work travel days. Yeah, usually I'm ok once I'm at the airport, but I'm finding the days leading up to that are like the Sunday before you have to go back to school.  I'm finding myself wanting to be at home all the time and not so much up in the air or in a hotel room.

It is a little better once I'm in those places.

Except for Monday.

Being somewhat of a road warrior - or worrier - you learn to go with the flow on certain things:  bad flights, cancelled flight, idiots on planes, crappy cars or bad GPS instructions. It's the nature of the game. One of those on a trip can leave a bad taste in your mouth - but try three or four in a day.

It actually made me call 710 in the middle of the day - something we never do - just to hear a friendly voice.

The first flight to San Francisco was fine. I slept half of the way. But SFO was a different story. Since I was taking a smaller jet to my final destination (not the movie), they transported us to a smaller terminal, one Greyhound would be embarrassed to call its own. I had 30 minute between flights.

It would turn out to be 30 minutes plus three hours. No plane.............no plane..............no plane.  Just excuses. In the meantime, I worked on my laptop and made calls. I finally got up and roamed around a bit - but with my luggage, as to leave it unattended would be a no-no.

Since the connection would mean gate-checking my bag, I went to get a tag for that - and that is when I noticed it was not my bag at all.  Same make, same model, same colour I have not seen anywhere else, but it had a different identification tag on it.  Fuck me.

Mind you, I had been sitting in a terminal for almost four hours without noticing , how far away could my bag have gone?  I figured I would be buying new suits, pants and poo-poo undies once I reached my final destination (not the movie).

But I called the number on the tag and a man answered. Miraculously, he was up a flight of stairs at another gate. His flight was delayed, he was sitting around and didn't notice my tag on the bag he was lugging around. I mean, I really thought my bag would have been turned in somewhere and I would get it two weeks after returning home.  But no - it was 700 feet from me.

I took the bag to him - not that he ever offered to come to me. Whatever. I was happy to have my toothpaste back....and my poo-poo undies. He flew in from Denver, so he wasn't even on my flight to get the bags switched. Finally we realized we were probably on the same shuttle from terminal to terminal.

Crisis averted, but it was a crappy 30 minutes, while I wrung my hands and fretted. Still weirder than seeing the next license plate in sequence with your own.

Then the plane came - a turbo prop. Great. I guess it was fine for 22 minute flight. The joke is, I could have driven from SFO to my destination twice while I waited for the plane, let alone the flight itself.

Then there was the rental car. The car seemed fine. But it was a hot hot day. 93 degrees, and I was late! So I got in and drove away. Yeah, I figured it was a Chevy so it would take a while for the air to kick in and cool down the car.  By the time I realized it was just going to blow 90 degree air on me, I was too far gone to turn around and start over with Budget.  The four calls I placed on my drive just rang and rang and rang at their business. Oh, I will be having words for them.

Since it's TMI, my shirt and t-shirt were soaked with sweat by the time I hit my hotel. No need for the client shit, since I missed all my scheduled meetings for Day 1.

And to top it off - dinner: El Pallo Loco.   Yes, it was next door to the hotel. I walked over, got my burrito and back to the a/c of my hotel room.

Oh, travel has no more glamour. None at all.


Song by: R.E.M.