First, let's be clear: transferring through Chicago O'Hare is a bad idea. For travel in the U.S., there may be no worse idea. And I knew when I booked tickets to Kalamazoo transferring at O'Hare both ways that I was asking for trouble. But everything worked so smoothly on the way out that I was brimming with foolish confidence on Sunday. Not everything that could have gone wrong did, but it was quite bad enough. And since my recent plumbing miseries were well-received here, I thought I'd write a few words about the non-joys of my recent travel.
I had packed light - one small luggage to check plus my laptop bag and canvas tote to carry on. Six novels, of which I had already finished two. Normally, I would put two more in my bag to carry on with me, just in case. For some reason, I decided to squeeze all four of them - the four Temeraire novels by Naomi Novik - into my tote. This would pay off later in the day.
I left for the Grand Rapids airport in plenty of time even in a downpour, and hit my first snag when I somehow missed the airport exit. I'm still not clear on whether it was badly marked or whether I was just zoning out driving in the rain. Several time-consuming loops around on local roads later, I managed to spot the tiny little signs that apparently are considered adequate and make my way to the airport with only 35 minutes to spare before my flight. Fortunately, Grand Rapids is one of those small airports (not as tiny as New Haven, but considerably smaller than Bradley) where check-in is not too traumatic. The rental car lot attendants tried to delay me with nonsensical demands:
"We must write down your exact mileage!"
"I have unlimited mileage; why does it matter?"
"It just does! And we need to know how much gas is in the tank!"
"But I pre-paid for a tank of gas, so it wouldn't matter if I returned it on fumes." (which I more-or-less did)
"But we have to write it down!"
It was still pouring and I couldn't see any reason to stick around while they filled out forms, so I tossed them the keys, and headed into the airport while they howled in the rain behind me. I checked in, checked my luggage, and then swung by the rental counter to find out if I needed to do anything. Nope. 28 minutes until flight departure.
1:17 p.m.: Okay, 58 minutes. Half-hour delay. Weather in Chicago. I start working my way through the first Novik novel.
1:45 p.m.: Scheduled departure time. We're all still sitting in the airport.
2:15 p.m.: We finally start to load the plane. I'm squeezed into the second row from the back, two rows behind a screaming infant and directly in front of a refrigerator-sized guy who's singing along with his iPod. Loudly. Joy. We all pile in and belt up. But the plane doesn't move. The air doesn't come on. The guy behind me goes through several songs. His three hulking companions all think this is screamingly funny. Finally, the pilot announces that we aren't being allowed to take off because the runways are closed at O'Hare so they are holding all flights. The flight attendants assure us that everyone is in the same boat and our connections at O'Hare can't take off anyway. I am not reassured; there aren't so many flights to Connecticut that I am likely to have a choice if I miss my scheduled one. The perky red-haired flight attendant cheerfully informs me that O'Hare has a huge stock of cots if I end up spending the night. I briefly mistake this for humor.
2:45 p.m.: The plane is hot. The poor infant is still screaming itself hoarse. The guy behind me is now making double-entendre jokes about him and his buddy and iPod sharing and putting it in hard and all. Somehow they manage to combine iPod connections. Now there are two hulking guys doing iPod karaoke to Billy Joel directly behind me. The perky flight attendant thinks this is hilarious. We finally get little bottles of water to drink.
3:15 p.m.: They give up and take us all off the plane. After a brief staredown with two teenagers over possession of the electrical outlet, I start checking email. The four hulks head off to get beer.
3:45 p.m.: They put us all back on the plane; we have a take-off slot at 3:55. Mad cheering! My connecting flight is scheduled to leave, oh, right about now.
3:56 p.m.: They announce that we didn't board fast enough, so we have been rescheduled for a 4:55 takeoff. The infant starts screaming again. The two hulking guys, after loudly announcing that they are going to San Francisco, start to sing "Hotel California". I engage my gaydar and carefully inspect all four of them. Big guys with much facial hair making gay sex jokes and singing: bears? I engage the youngest and narrowest of the group in conversation with sprightly good cheer about the opportunities for picking up hot young studs and assorted sexual aids in the Castro. He giggles and blushes. His friends sing more loudly, interspersed with loud calls for beer. Maybe not bears.
4:30 p.m.: They somehow squeeze us in for takeoff. Finally, we're out of Grand Rapids. The flight attendants serve pretzels. The not-bears yell for beer. The infant screams nonstop. I am in full sympathy with the kid. I finish the first Novik and start plowing through the second novel.
4:30 p.m. (CST): On the ground at O'Hare at last. Needless to say, my flight has left. The gate agent tells me to go to B7, quickly, there's a 4:30 flight delayed. After a mad, crowd-dodging dash through the neon-lit tunnels, I skid to a halt at B7 to find myself in the midst of a crowd that wants to go to LaGuardia. The gate agent here is a desperately unhappy-looking woman surrounded by a crowd of angry passengers trying to bargain their way onto a New York flight. She looks at my boarding pass, points out unhelpfully that my flight has left (I know that, damnit) and tells me to wait until she's boarded this flight and she'll rebook me. I huddle in the crowd and eventually find myself talking with one of my co-panelists from last year at Kalamazoo. He gets on the flight. An awful lot of people don't. I rejoin the line for the gate agent.
4:50 p.m.: One of my fellow passengers points out that the departure board says the next flight to Hartford is at B3, not B7. I check the board. Right. Next flight at B3, following one at B7. I drop out of line and hare off to B3, where I find a good-looking young man cheerfully telling everyone that he can't do anything, he's just a flight attendant. He has very, very white teeth and a large and charming smile. Eventually a gate agent shows up, unsmiling. He examines my boarding pass and informs me that my flight has already left (what, do I look stupid?) Then he tells me to come back in an hour or so, he's busy, and the flight doesn't leave until 6:30 and there's already a long list for standby and why don't I just go to customer service? He doesn't actually look very busy, but the entire airport is starting to bear a strong resemblance to the New York City subway at rush hour, with herds of anxious passengers moving en masse from gate to gate, frantically looking for a flight. I join a herd thundering along the B terminal toward customer service. I find the end of the line several gates away from the actual service desk. There are about 200 people in it and it isn't moving noticeably. Visions of cots dance in my head. Clearly a change of strategy is called for.
5:20 p.m.: Back at gate B7, which feels sort of like home at this point. The gate agent looks even more unhappy and not at all pleased to see me again. I'm not a frequent flier or anything else that would let me jump the standby queue, so I try looking pathetic.
"I know this isn't your problem..."
"Everything is my problem today! Even if it isn't my problem, it's my problem!"
Um, okay, definitely not a happy gate agent. But the customer service line still hasn't moved. Add butter.
"...but you're the only person here who's been nice to me today..."
For values of nice that cover the "brusque but not too unpleasant" range.
"...and I don't want to sleep on a cot and would you please, please help me get home to Hartford?"
I concentrate on the image of a crying, helpless, extremely lovable kitten and try to project the aura of some sort of New England naif overwhelmed by the pressure of the big city airport. C'mon, lady, you really want to help me 'cause I'm small and polite and extremely pathetic and you don't want me to be stranded here. I think I shrank two or three inches by sheer willpower.
"Well...give me your boarding pass." [pause] "Your flight has already left."
Yes, I know my flight has already left. If my flight had not already left, I would not be standing in front of you pleading with you to rebook me!
"I know...and the man at B3 told me to come back in an hour but by then there will be no seats on the next one."
I'm trying to stay on the "wail" rather than "whine" side of the line here.
"There are eighty-two people on the standby list for the 4:30 flight..."
I emit a small, extremely nonthreatening mew. It doesn't even take much effort. That's almost a whole other plane's worth of people. I'm doomed. Cot, cot, cot. And my luggage, what about my checked luggage? Where has it gone?
"...but there's one seat left on the 6:30 flight. It's not leaving until 8:30, though. Do you want it?"
Do I want it? Do I want it? What are you, crazy? "Yes, yes, please!"
She prints out a boarding pass and passes it over with a wink.
"By the way, it's a first class seat. Have a nice evening!"
I pour out incoherent thanks and stand at the gate for a few minutes in disbelief, clutching the boarding pass that says "Seat 1C", before joining another herd and thundering noisily down the terminal again in search of a restaurant. The line for the restaurant stretches past two gates and is full of grim-faced passengers. The line for the sandwich stand is comparable. So is the line for the popcorn cart. The line for McDonald's is somewhat shorter. Yes, it's that moment:
I can haz cheezburger?
Two, actually. I now have a warm and greasy bag to clutch along with my laptop as I plunge back into the crowd.
6:15 p.m.: I find an actual seat at B7, next to two reasonably respectable-looking men, facing out into the terminal right across from the end of the customer service line. As I wolf down cheeseburgers, I realize the men are tracking the line.
"Tank top girl has moved two feet!"
"The guy with the yarmulke hasn't moved at all."
I ask them how far the line has moved lately.
"Six feet in half an hour."
I move my boarding pass from my pocket to inside my bra. My preciousss...
I had noticed on the way out that O'Hare's wireless network is not free, despite a device which says "Free Public Wifi" appearing on my Airport list. Every time I click that, the usual "stripey fan" icon changes to "fan with monitor on it". I have no idea what that means, but it doesn't seem to allow me access. I investigate the for-pay wireless. It not only wants my credit card, it wants to sign me up for a monthly plan and download software to my new and virginal MacBook. I give up and go back to reading, trying not to wonder where my luggage might have gone.
7:10 p.m.: Finished with Novik #2. Having read the first three before, they are going a little too quickly. I strike up a conversation with the line-watchers, who turn out to be a Major General in the reserves and a senior noncom (40 years in the military) traveling in civvies for security reasons, hoping to make a connection in D.C. for a flight to Kuwait to see how effective the stateside training they manage has been. Interesting! They determine that while I may be wearing black and against the war, at least my uncle served in Vietnam, so I'm worth talking to. We have an interesting conversation about the surge. They feel that it is working, but will cease to work about ten seconds after the U.S. leaves Iraq since the Iraqis are not doing the political work to make anything stick. Interesting to get something like a boots-on-the-ground opinion that pretty much matches mine. I'm pleased that their concern for the troops is invariably expressed as "the guys and gals" with no indication that this is either an effort or a politically correct gesture. They agree that since I'm probably not a terrorist they will watch my bag during my periodic trips to get water and check the departure board (still on for 8:30!) and are interesting and agreeable company until they finally head off to board a flight.
7:45 p.m.: I start the third novel.
8:45 p.m.: I notice my flight still isn't boarding. That's not a good sign. I move to a seat right next to the jetway door just to make sure I don't miss anything.
9:00 p.m.: The crew is starting to collect near the door. The first officer explains that they are waiting for the plane, which is delayed in Los Angeles, or maybe San Francisco.
9:05 p.m.: They announce that we must all move to gate B8. The entire crowd, now including over one hundred hopeful standby passengers, relocates.
9:15 p.m.: They announce that we must move from gate B8 to gate B9. We all pile into B9 with a giant crowd of people trying to go to LaGuardia. They announce that the LaGuardia flight will now be leaving from B7. The New York-bound passengers appear ready to riot, and it takes several rounds of fervent coaxing on the loudspeaker to convince them to abandon B9 to us. I can't help wondering why they don't just park the plane at whatever gate the passengers are currently at, rather than moving us from gate to gate.
9:20 p.m.: The plane arrives, and all of a sudden the evening starts getting much better. It's been decades since I flew first class. I board in the first group. There is ample space for my luggage in the overhead bin. I have two pillows and a blanket waiting for me on my wide seat along with my free headset. The flight attendants offer pre-takeoff juice served in an actual glass. My neighbor arrives and immediately goes to sleep. The pilot comes to the cabin to introduce himself. He's former military and has quite the swaggering air. I just hope he remembers that he is flying a passenger jet and not a fighter jet.
9:45 p.m.: Escape from O'Hare! Unfortunately, it's now 10:45 p.m. on the east coast, my ETA is now almost 1:00 a.m., and I'm not going to get the book review posted on this calendar day. Arrgh.
But the flight itself is sweet. More drinks come by; if I had wanted to get smashed, I could have easily done it. They take our orders for our cold supper; I order the salmon. The food comes along with more drinks - the flight attendants are just walking up and down the cabin with wine bottles refilling glasses - cloth tableclothes for our tray tables, cloth napkins, and real silverware. I don't actually like fish that much, let alone cold fish in a salad, but I dutifully munch on salmon and cantaloupe and grapes. I covet my neighbor's chocolate cake over my own carrot cake and the flight attendant actually exchanges my dessert. I finish the third novel and start in on the fourth, the only one I hadn't actually read before.
Before landing, the flight attendants pass out the pilot's business card with a handwritten thank-you (individual name included) on each. Wow. Is this typical in first class?
12:50 a.m.: Finally back at Bradley. I make my way sadly to the luggage carousel, wondering if my luggage has somehow managed to come along with me or if it's sitting on a runway at O'Hare somewhere. Needless to say, the carousel is not moving. I'm about to pull out the laptop and see if I can get the book review posted when I happen to glance over at the lost-luggage office. Hmm, they've got a whole flotilla of luggage over there. Maybe, just maybe, if I'm really lucky, and don't I deserve one more bit of luck...?
Yes.
One orange-and-black luggage. The bag actually beat me back to Hartford. I head out to the parking shuttle.
1:55 a.m.: Home at last. Fifteen minutes of reading to finish the last Novik novel. Sleep.
Yikes. That's almost like "twisty little passages, all alike."
Posted by: Marilee J. Layman | May 16, 2008 at 07:13 PM
I concentrate on the image of a crying, helpless, extremely lovable kitten and try to project the aura of some sort of New England naif overwhelmed by the pressure of the big city airport.
And there was nobody to record and then post that performance on YouTube. Drat.
I'm quite happy to report that my own airborne adventures have never been this bad. There was the time in 1990 when I flew from San Francisco to DC. It took forever for the plane to actually leave its gate in San Francisco, and the connecting flight in Minneapolis took forbloodyever to show up, and we had to land in the other DC airport. And it was late by then. That was ok though because they had shuttles to take us to the airport where we should have landed and that meant driving pat the Pentagon at night. Awesome.
Posted by: Serge | May 16, 2008 at 09:37 PM
Marilee:
Indeed, I say gruefully.
Serge:
I've had bad flight experiences before. I've spent a night in Kennedy waiting for an outbound flight to England. I've arrived successfully at LaGuardia in a blizzard, which would have been fine if I hadn't been ticketed to New Haven and told that since I was within 90 miles as the crow flies that was close enough (let's ignore the little matter of Long Island Sound between LaGuardia and home). I've had luggage lost, though it's always been returned within a day or two. I've had jewelry stolen by the TSA (now all jewelry travels in my carryon.) But for sheer length and variety of obstacles, this was a memorable trip.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | May 16, 2008 at 11:28 PM
By the way, what was the trip's Security Theater like? Mildly annoying as in, you have to take everything off before going thru their scanners, then, at the other end of the short conveyor belt, you have to rush and pick up everything otherwise you hold everybody up? That kind of annoying? Or the kind where something you're wearing sets off their alarms (like my wife did with that knee brace) and you spend the next 10-15 minutes having to prove you're not out to destroy everything that is Good and Beautiful about America?
Posted by: Serge | May 17, 2008 at 09:50 AM
Since I was leaving from two relatively sane airports (Bradley and Grand Rapids) and was careful not to leave the "secure" area at O'Hare, it wasn't any worse than usual. The laptop is a pain - it has to be unpacked and scanned separately - but otherwise it was routine. I had dressed for Security Theater by wearing sandals and not wearing a belt or hairpins. (I've had detectors set off by my body jewelry, which I can't do much about, and by wearing a lot of hairpins, which I can, at the price of looking bedraggled.)
That doesn't mean that having to do Security Theater at all doesn't offend me and raise my blood pressure every time.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | May 17, 2008 at 09:59 AM
I don't have any airline horror stories of my own, because we have good intercity rail here so I've never travelled anywhere by plane, but I enjoy reading other people's.
One of my favourites (partly because it's relatively bloodless) happened to Mark Evanier earlier this year:
He arrived at his destination, to find that his luggage had not arrived on the same plane. It was suggested that it might arrive on the next scheduled flight, so he hung around; it did, the airline handed over his luggage and an apologetic discount voucher, and he made it to his hotel in the wee small hours.
Only to be woken unpleasantly early by a phone call from the airline, assuring him that they were still looking for his luggage and would not rest until it was found...
Posted by: Paul A. | May 17, 2008 at 11:36 AM
And *thats* why I'm about to load 3000 books into my cellphone.
Back in January I had 36 unexpected hours at or near Dulles, and got to observe a 200 person line moving at 30 people/hour. (This is when San Francisco had inches of rain in a day, and many flights were canceled).
Our first flight wasn't canceled: the flight crew timed out.
We were all on the plane, and suddenly the captain said "Sorry folks, I just hit my time limit. Bye." and just up and left.
Luckily we had two (data enabled) cell phones, two laptops, and a nice gate agent pointed us to a ticket kiosk, so the only (much shorter) line with which to deal was for hotel vouchers.
I finally got to see the big Air&Space museum, so it was worth it.
Posted by: Kathryn from Sunnyvale | May 17, 2008 at 04:11 PM
Paul A... That sounds very much like something that'd happen to someone who works with Sergio Aragonès...
Posted by: Serge | May 17, 2008 at 04:19 PM
I finally got to see the big Air&Space museum
So did I, during that 1990 trip. The whole business thing itself had been scheduled to take the whole day, with my flying back in the evening, but the meeting was over by late morning. That's when I realized I was near the A&S Museum, where I spent most of the afternoon. After that, I started walking across town to DC's train station that'd take me to the airport, which is how I got to see the Lincoln Memorial, and the Vietnam Wall next to it.
In the annoying-flying dept... Back in 2002, after I moved to New Mexico, I had to fly to San Francisco for one week, Literally half-way back to NM, the plane turned around because of mechanical problems. They did that instead of keeping on going because Oakland's airtport had better repair facilities. When we finally took off again, we got no compensation, not even a small bag of peanuts.
Posted by: Serge | May 17, 2008 at 05:12 PM
I should mention that along with the four novels, I had my canario research materials and another several hundred pages of dance nonfiction reading material along, just in case I wanted to work instead of relax, plus a belly dancing DVD I could play in a pinch. I'm the sort of person who brings a magazine along on errands so I can read at red lights.
Usually I prefer to read fiction during stressful travel, though.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | May 17, 2008 at 06:32 PM
Ye gods and diminutive fishes. That was the airport experience from seven hells. And I thought I'd been through a few, being sent from gate to gate.
Posted by: Fragano Ledgister | May 17, 2008 at 07:16 PM
The scary thing is that it could have been much worse. I wasn't kept on a plane for six hours with no air and no water and backed up lavs. I wasn't one of what I'd guess was 100ish Hartford-bound people who ended up stuck in Chicago overnight. My luggage and I both arrived at the same airport, and I didn't even have to wait for the plane to be unloaded.
Not that I'm complaining; I don't need blogging material that badly! And I did get the first-class seating, which was an interesting experience in and of itself.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | May 17, 2008 at 07:22 PM
Dear Ghu....
The worst experience I ever had was trying to get from Portland (Oregon) to SF, on a night when the planes could take off but not land in Portland.
So they loaded the people going to SF and the people going to NY on a plane to Seattle (along with the people actually going to Seattle) where we got to spend a few hours in a deserted terminal. This was in the late 60s ... there was nothing open in the airport on Sunday night, not even a newsstand.
My father once flew from San Jose to Las Vegas by way of Albuquerque. (Weather, I think.)
Posted by: P J Evans | May 18, 2008 at 10:43 AM
Serge, Kathryn means the Udvar-Hazy Annex. You were at the main museum.
I haven't had any of this waiting for planes in the five round-trips I've had since the doctors let me fly again. But I'm flying mid-week to, then from, a hub.
Now, back when I consulted, I was on a plane coming in to land at Dulles that got hit by lightning. The power went off, the plane dropped, then the power came back on and we circled around and then landed. Some people were still screaming. And at the last job, I used to fly to/from China Lake. Not only do you take a six-seater over very bumpy mountains to get near the city/base, but the landing strip was given to the city by the Navy because it was too dangerous. So you bounce your way over (someone always vomits) and then you descend to the landing strip and at a point where there's a gap in the mountains, BAM! the air hits the plane sideways hard enough to sometimes move it completely off the strip onto sand. Kind of a 90-minute thrill ride.
Posted by: Marilee J. Layman | May 18, 2008 at 06:45 PM
P J... San Jose to Las Vegas by way of Albuquerque
As the crow flies, if it's an old crow, and a very drunk one at that.
Posted by: Serge | May 18, 2008 at 09:43 PM
Marilee... You were at the main museum
Oh, right. By the way, my favorite memory of that museum was going inside the SkyLab. I can't remember if that was just a mockup, but that was impressive. And the passageways were, to say the least, cramped.
By the way, your description of flying over mountains reminds me of 1939's Only Angels Have Wings, except that that movie didn't show anybody barfing. Plenty of dying though.
Posted by: Serge | May 18, 2008 at 09:51 PM
Gah! I'm looking at flights for Denver for worldcon and what does the cheapest one involve? Transferring through O'Hare.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | May 19, 2008 at 04:23 PM
Yes, the Udvar-Hazy Annex. I'd been at the "main" museum during regularly scheduled tourism. I think that whichever building holds a space shuttle gets to be the main museum, names notwithstanding.
If we didn't have two flight vouchers from the Unexpected Stay in DC, I'd be tempted to drive to Denver. 1300 miles, 18 hours, 45 gallons...hmmm. Drag and drop the path on gmaps... 1200 miles by way of Yosemite NP, Great Basin NP, and then a couple of diversions to Arches NP... should only take 4 days.
(My partner is slightly less into that idea, although as a general principle we both like road trips and national parks.)
Depends in part on if we're doing two parties or one. There'll be a Making Light gathering, but I figure one last faux-bid-party could be fun, and that requires lugging the picture tubes (those 8 foot x 1 foot pics) and other sordid supplies.
For LACon, we flew (because we left for Burning Man on Monday, the very next day) and had local fan friends who were driving take party supplies down.
Posted by: Kathryn from Sunnyvale | May 19, 2008 at 04:45 PM
I strongly considered taking the train in at least one direction, but I've decided I need the time too much to do it. But I just found a r/t for $353 that goes through Dallas at reasonably good times and jumped on it. Anything that doesn't involve O'Hare!
I may end up shipping costume stuff out in advance.
If you haven't seen Arches, it's fabulous - I went through on my drive 'round the country back in 1992. Well worth a detour.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | May 19, 2008 at 04:49 PM
Kathryn... Four days for a 1300-mile drive? I presume that'd be a trip with many stops along the way because, when I drive from Albuquerque to the Bay Area, it takes us only 17 hours to drive 1100 miles. I did that once in one day and decided this was not a good idea.
As for the trip to Denver... That should take us no more than 8 hours, including stops. That means we'll be at the Hyatt Regency in the middle of the afternoon on August 6.
Posted by: Serge | May 19, 2008 at 05:46 PM
Serge
3 days, maybe. The idea of being that close to Arches, beautiful, lovely Arches, and not stopping by doesn't make sense. Although we'd only be that close if we took 50, and we'd only take 50 because of all the National Parks. hmmm.
Posted by: Kathryn from Sunnyvale | May 20, 2008 at 04:49 AM
Kathryn... Well, no matter what, it'll be convenient for you to have a vehicle at the worldcon, especially with that gathering you're planning to hold. Or are grocery stores within easy walking distance?
Posted by: Serge | May 20, 2008 at 07:47 AM