Now boarding

Flying stresses me out. Flying during the busiest week makes me bite taste buds off my tongue.

I left home today for a Thanksgiving trip to the Midwest. Instead of begging a friend for a ride, I decided to be the conscientious little urbanite that I am and I took the bus. Since I moved away from home (the hermetically sealed WASPy suburbs), I've learned that public transportation is actually not that bad. Depending upon the bus you ride you can meet some interesting characters, but work subsidises an annual pass, so I figure why not go for free.

Although I have discussed at length my knack for procrastinating and living a just-in-time lifestyle, when it comes to getting to the airport, that is something I WILL NOT tolerate. I am always there so ridiculously early, but it makes me feel better sitting and waiting at the gate for an hour than staring at my watch counting each and every second in the security line hoping that by the time I make it to the gate, they'll still be boarding.

I left my house for a bus with plenty of time to spare (over 2.5 hours until flight time). I hopped on my local bus into downtown to catch the express to the airport. When the express pulled up 10 minutes late and overflowing with standing room only of holiday travelers, I panicked. Note to self: As trusty as public transportation can be, maybe, for my sanity, it shouldn't be a variable in the equation on the busiest travel days of the year.

The driver wouldn't let another woman and me on because he was over capacity. We contemplated sharing a cab, when another bus bound for the airport pulled up. However, this bus was not the express so it would take up to an hour to get there as opposed to the 20 minutes of the express (or even taxi). But it was free. But I would likely only be at the airport with just about an hour to spare. But it was free. Hmmm. Decisions.

The woman and I decided to try our luck with the bus. Therein began my neurotic commute to the airport. I immediately became "worst-case scenario girl," and called my aunt and my mom to let them know I probably wasn't going to make it back for Thanksgiving. Yes, I did make that call. And yes, it was a smidgen dramatic. But my logic was that if the airport bus was that packed, then the security line would be worse than the line for the Matterhorn during Disney's peak summer season--only there'd be fewer people snapping pictures and likely no french women with unshaven armpits bumping their sweaty bodies up against mine. The likelihood of me getting through that line in time was slim to none, and if I missed my flight (the last one on that airline for the day), there would be no way I could get on a flight tomorrow, I'm sure all of the flights are overbooked. So have a happy Thanksgiving and eat my share of grandma's mashed potatoes, I'm likely just going to cry my way back home. I was in such a frenetic state (calm and composed on the outside... but freaking out inside my head), that by the time we pulled up at the airport I was sweating and my heart was racing.

I full on sprinted into and through the terminal and when I summited the escalators to ticketing and security, there was nobody in the airport. Okay, gross exaggeration, but there was hardly anyone there. Where did all those people on the bus go?

I walked around the corner to security, and to my surprise, there was not a single person in line. Ou sont les dames francais? On one of the busiest travel days of the year, I walked right up to a TSA rep, in fact I had my choice of three. And, get this, I was there in enough time, that I hopped on an earlier flight--because it had several empty seats. And I even got a window seat.

Needless to say, I'll be eating my own share of grandma's mashed potatoes.