Liz's Trip to Chicago: Day 1

Well once again I attempted to fly from Austin to Chicago for business. As you may recall I tried to fly to Chicago at the end of January but my flight was cancelled two days in a row at which point I threw in the towel and just reschedule for Feb 7 - 10. It was pretty inconvenient to have to cancel the trip as I had both personal and business appointments scheduled. But what can you do when Austin is completely iced over? Nothing.

My flight to Chicago was supposed to leave today (Feb 7) at 2:45 pm. I noticed when I checked-in online yesterday afternoon that my flight was maybe half full. I viewed that as a good thing from a comfort perspective. I planned to work, pack, and generally get ready to go until about 1 pm today when I had planned to leave for the airport. But, alas, it was not to be. I got a call from a far-too-cheerful American Airlines employee at 9 am this morning informing me that my 2:45 pm flight had been cancelled because of weather in Chicago. She followed this bombshell with an offer to put me on a 12:10 pm flight or a 5:45 pm flight to Chicago.

What??! That makes no sense at all. If the weather is SO awful that they have to cancel flights 6 hours in advance then how is it that a flight leaving 3 hours earlier and one leaving 3 hours later than the scheduled flight would be safe to fly?! Based upon long experience I knew that the 12:10 pm flight was the only option because when they start cancelling flights the ones leaving later are always at the most risk.

I agreed to fly at 12:10 which meant that I had to rush around and make all of my preparations in an hour. I had no time to do my hair which is now a mess. I had no time to update a couple of resumes for my clients. I am tired, frazzled, behind on my work, and generally pissed off at the liars at American Airlines. That flight wasn't cancelled because of the weather in Chicago (it's sunny and about 15 degrees here). It was cancelled because the flight wasn't full. Period. End of story.

Once again American Airlines has caused me extreme inconvenience and hassle. I don't know what is wrong with these people. It's pretty clear that they aren't running an actual airline as much as an occasional shuttle service. This is starting to feel like a visit to the Caribbean where you never know if your bus, car, flight, or boat will show up or not. Maybe the folks at American Airlines have taken up the Caribbean pastime of drinking rum punch all day.

I was originally supposed to arrive in Chicago at 5:45 pm today at which point a colleague of mine was supposed to pick me up at O'Hare for a pre-planned dinner in the far west suburbs. Since my schedule now skews earlier I had to pay $45 for a semi-retarded young man to drive me to Elgin, Illinois. This kid just didn't believe me when I told him that 450 Airport Road (my destination) was not on the same side of the street as 405 Airport Road.

He literally drove into every driveway on the other side of the road (all with odd numbered addresses) to make sure that 450 wasn't on that side of the street. We spent 15 extra minutes investigating every hotel and business on the other side of Airport Road before he finally conceded to drive across the street to #450. This is why I don't own or carry firearms. My lack of patience combined with bullets and gunpowder would land me in jail faster than you can say, "Idiotmobile".

So now I am catching up on email, blogging, and returning phone calls until our dinner at 7pm. After dinner I will pay another driver $112 to drive me downtown to Hope's condo where I am spending the night.

I was supposed to stay here until Saturday but I managed to pack a lot of appointments into my day tomorrow and I have changed my flight so I can return to Austin on Friday. I think that it is not meant for me to stay here for more than a day. My flight has been cancelled 3 times in a row, the weather is freezing, and it seems like this trip is becoming inconvenient for all concerned. Maybe it's just best if I stay home and off of airplanes for the foreseeable future.