What a Day!!!
Ugh!
Well, I am here in Louisville…but what a trip! Usually a day like today would be filed under “I’m an Idiot” but this one wasn’t on me…
 My flight to Louisville was only one way as I’ll be in the truck with two of our sales guys all week. So it made sense for me to take a car to the airport – save on parking, no worries about having to pick up my car, etc.
I got up at 4:30 am to make sure I was all set for the Metro Car I booked. They were picking me up at 5:30 am for a 6:45 am flight.  Every time I have booked a sedan or cab, they have always been there 15 minutes early, so I thought to give myself a little room, I’d be ready to roll the minute they showed up.Â
Dressed, bag by the door, I sat staring out my front window for car lights…5:15, no car…5:20, no car…5:25, no car…5:30 WTF?!?
I called the reservation number and got the same guy who I booked with the day before. Dude, where’s my car?? He said it should have been there and that he’d call the driver and then call me back. Two minutes later, it’s him. He can’t get the driver on the phone, he’s not picking up. AURGHHHH!!! It’s going to take 20 minutes to get a new car out to me and that’s going to make me late, but now I resigned myself that I was getting on a different flight. I tell him to get a car out to me ASAP and then make a call straight away to American Airlines.
After about 5 minutes of VM h-e-double hockey sticks (I was told I have some kids reading the blog now, so language…) I got a rep on the phone. I explained I was having “car trouble” and that I would need to rebook. this is what I got, “You’re not going to Louisville today unless you get on that plane at 6:45.” Turns out AA only has two flights to Louisville out of Chicago each day and the late flight was sold out..and so was both of Tuesday’s flights…AURGHHHHHH!!!!! I HAD to be down here today to get our space set up for the ICUEE show because it starts tomorrow at 8:30 am.
It’s now just after 5:40 am. I figure I got one last shot so I jumped in my car, backed it out over my lawn because I had blocked it in since I wasn’t going to be driving and proceeded to break every major traffic law with the exception of running a red light.
I got to Metro’s Big Blue parking deck from my house in Southfield in just 20 minutes. I am tellin’ you I FLEW!!! Grabbed my luggage, backpack and my big 14″x14″x14″ box filled with show equipment I was bringing and ran as fast as I could to the counter.
I begged to cut the line and everyone was really cool about it. So here I was, almost 6:15 (when the plane was supposed to start boarding) and first in the baggage drop line. I just might pull this…….
NOPE! In front of me only two stations were open. One station had a couple checking in first class and they had 6 pieces of luggage they were checking. You could tell they had plenty of time cause they were just blah, blah, blahing. The other counter, a girl had her bags completely unzipped trying to make weight! AURGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! Tick, tick, tick, tick…..
Finally, the first class couple move and I jump the counter. PLEASE get me on this flight…tell me I not too late…pleas…………………CRAP!!!!!! Yup, no more luggage allowed on the plane. I could still check in but there was my bag (when I travel for a week, I have to take a big bag. When you wear size 13 shoes, just one pair takes up an entire travel bag.) and my box full of show materials.  AURGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
So here I was, 6:20 am and rolling my luggage and box back to my car. I still had to get to Louisville! So over to McDonald’s I went. They had WiFi, I had my computer, the car rental places are all around me…1+1+1=get a one way rental. Well, McDonald’s sucks and after 15 minutes of trying to get a connection, I headed over to the Days Inn down the street and had to flash the baby blues AND work the dinmples to get them to let me use their signal.
Long story longer…I was able to get a one way rental from Hertz for essentially a standard day rate but I had to go all the way back up to Southfield to pick it up. So back up to just about where I started to get the car.
This is all before 8:00 am and I’ve only had a small little coffee. AURGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
That was my morning. Go ahead and laugh at me, I know you want too.
So a six hour car ride later, I’m in Louisville. More tomorrow…
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