Next Time, Just Beam Me Up

Traveling is miserable – there is no other way to describe it. Even traveling for vacation. To clarify, I am not referring to the destinations, which can be fantastic. It’s getting to and from said destination – be it for business or for pleasure – that is usually torturous.

My husband and I recently traveled to Florida for a few days of R&R. We had an early (but not too early) flight, and spa appointments scheduled for us upon our arrival. We were much in need of a getaway – and a massage.

I should have known things were too good to be true when we were ready to leave our apartment right on time, a bit before 7 a.m. Bags were packed, taxi was summoned, cats were fed and accounted for. We made our way to the building lobby to wait for the cab that was promised to arrive in 10-15 minutes.

Fast-forward 45 minutes, multiple calls to dispatch and the onset of full-blown panic when the cab driver finally showed up with a variety of excuses about how he couldn’t find our building. Given it was nearly 8 a.m. by this point, the D.C. morning commute traffic was in full swing, and the cab driver determined it was best to drive as slowly as possible while taking the longest, most out-of-the-way route to the airport. It appeared that we were going to miss our flight.

Needless to say, when we arrived at the airport the agents would not let us check our bags as we were too close to our flight’s departure time – we were told that we would need to re-book on the later flight.

Unacceptable.

Thus began the frenzy of running through the airport, suitcases in tow, hoping that we would make it to the gate before our flight left and our bags could be checked there. But as nothing is easy, before getting to the gate we ran back and forth between security and ticketing due to boarding pass issues, fell down a few times (that was just me), were forced to throw away liquids over 2 oz. that security would not let pass (goodbye, fancy hair products) … by this point my husband was exasperated and saw nothing wrong with taking the later flight (and drinking in the airport bar for 4 hours).

I, however, refused to accept that my fate rested in the hands of an idiot taxi driver. As dire as the situation was, from the moment we pulled up at the airport I was determined to Get. On. The. Plane. And get on I did, in spite of everyone’s best efforts to have it otherwise. Not only did we make it to the gate just in the nick of time, but we also had free first class upgrades waiting for us. Good travel karma had finally arrived.

Complementary cocktails? Don’t mind if I do!

My husband later commented that I was “very annoying” during this situation. I accept that with pride. We made the flight, made our spa appointments, and ended up having a great day. If I have to be annoying to overcome travel issues and make things happen to get a vacation started as planned, so be it!