the airport floor

Can I just say that #1 I HATE THE ATLANTA AIRPORT #2 I HATE US AIRWAYS #3 I HATE THE CHARLOTTE AIRPORT

Let me tell you about my lovely little trip. I leave the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport headed for a layover in Charlotte. The plane takes off-then immediately lands! The passengers all began to look concernced. The pilot then gets of the speakerphone and says (and I quote) "Uuummmm....sorry folks this is kinda embarassing but we seem to have forgotten to put fuel in the plane, it's gonna be a bit of a wait." SERIOUSLY?? How the F do you forget to fuel a freaking plane???? And so began the journey from hell. After 2 hours on the runway waiting for the forgotten fuel we finally took off.

I arrive in Charlotte where I have to RUN at full speed to make my connecting flight only to get there and have them tell us - oops! another delay! This time they didn't even tell us why, I like to think it's because everyone who works at US Airways is completely off their rockers and should not be allowed to fly planes. I finally arrive in Atlanta, 6 HOURS LATE. It then takes them almost 2 hours just to give us our bags which were on the same damn plane we were! What took so long? Was the crew taking a nap before unloading the luggage? It would seem so!

So now I'm in a really really crappy mood. All I want to do is get in my rental, go to the hotel and take a long hot shower and go to bed. But of course life is never that simple. I get to the Hertz place hop in my sweet ride (Nissan Murano-not bad actually except I hated the headrest but that's another story) when I realize this is a car that starts at the push of a button! Neato right? Umm not so much when the freaking car won't start and I don't know why. I don't know how to use these keyless cars why don't they give instructions!!! So feeling more angry and pissed I grab an attendant and inform him the car won't start to which he responds "Uummmm, MAM, you have to push the brake for 3 seconds while you push the button. " All the while looking at me like I'm a pitiful little woman who shouldn't be allowed to drive. Seriously dude how the hell am I supposed to know to push the brake for 3 seconds when no one f-ing tells you that? And don't call me MAM you're like 10 years older than me you loser!!!

And yes, it gets worse..........

The trip was pointless to begin with, training on how to give presentations when I just graduated from college and gave probably 314 presentations in the last 2 years alone. So I was irritated about the waste of time to begin with, then they put us all in the smallest room ever! Picture if you will 1 crazy instructor (with bright red hair that flips on one side and has giant blond chunks on the other) 12 guys who act like they're in middleschool the whole week, and 3 girls (Me, my old roomy, and one other chick) all cramped into a 1ox12 room that has no AC- in Atlanta, GA!!! and it also has the most awful, painful chairs ever invented. We were trapped there for 9 hours a day for 4 days straight. Needless to say, by Thursday afternoon not only was I ready to go home I was also in desperate need of a spinal adjustment.

And so begins the end of the trip from hell. I get to the Atlanta Airport (the busy airport in the world fyi) and thankfully make it through security in only 45 minutes. I get to my gate about an hour early which was fine because I needed dinner anyway, only to see that because of bad weather my plane is delayed a half hour. That's fine, no big deal. So I grab a hotdog (my stomach was already in need of pumping after 4 days of hotel food and catered crap at training so I figured what the hell) Well, a half hour passes and they inform us that the plane will be another 45 minutes late. I'm more than annoyed by now because I just want to go home! As it was I wasn't going to make it home until midnight. Long story short, I didn't end up flying out until 4 hours later. I arrived in Charlotte around 12:30 AM only to find that my flight left without me. I was then informed that Charlotte airport will not reopen until 5 am and I couldn't get a flight until 7:30. So I told them to give me a hotel room voucher and they inform me and the crowd that since it was due to weather they will not give us anything, furthermore we could not sleep at our gate on the "comfy" chairs or we would be arrested for trespassing.

To keep herself from getting killed by the mob, the lady then told us we were more than welcome to sleep on the floor at baggage claim. REALLY????? So me and Ashley-another trainee who ended up on my flight- decided to get nice and drunk. We found the airport bar that was about to close and tried to get some beers and food. We were informed that all they had was Jeager and Salt and Vinegar chips. So that's what we had for dinner. Straight shots of Jeager and Salt and Vinegar chips......I really will need my stomach pumped.

YUM! DINNER!!

After consuming our gourmet spread we went to investigate the sleeping situation. Here is what we found:

To avoid sleeping on top of random strangers we chose a secluded spot on the freezing cold floor such as this one.

Good times. My back is now screaming at me to give it heavy pain killers. So as we lay on the floor shivering in the cold AC I tried to pretend that my laptop was really a pillow. NOT SO MUCH. Finally at 4 am ------ 3 hours after we first laid down------ some random airport worker comes over and is like "Oh hey we have pillows and little blankets why are you sleeping on your laptop? " OH MY GOD!!!!! Let's see maybe because you jackasses didn't GIVE us any blankets or pillows!!!!!! So by that time I was already half awake so I sat in a chair until the airport opened up at 5am. I then slept on the floor at my gate until boarding. This flight was also an hour late and was also overbooked by 7 people. Thankfully two old people volunteered to take a later flight and me and another guy got first class seats!! That was the only highlight of the trip. Of course I slept the entire flight so I didn't really get to enjoyt the first class experience to the fullest. (i.e. getting wasted at 8 am on free bloody mary's)-this is what the guy next to me did. Good times.

Feel free to pity me : )