A travel day from hell

⏱ 20230318

♬ Faith No More - King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime

Oklahoma has never been a favorite of mine

Back when I was in the oilfield, Okies were always a pain in the ass. Somethings never change.

It all started so well

I woke up on Thursday at 0400. I was in Enid, OK on a job, a plant with servo issues. At 0430 I hit the road to Oklahoma City. I arrived an hour earlier than I needed so I went to the Cell Phone Waiting Lot and killed some time. At 0645 I returned my car and by 0700 I was at the ticket desk to check in and also check my bags. I travel with a pelican case toolbox that weighs in at 63 pounds, a Briggs and Riley 36 inch roller bag, a samsonite rolling laptop bag, and a small canvas sling bag. All in all about 135 pounds. The lady at the desk took a tone with me from the get go. It pissed me off, but mildly at that point. My philosophy is "I always get to escape, these people have to stay."

I did as usual in an airport and found a quiet place to hang out. At around 20 minutes to boarding I went to the gate. I sighed as I saw the lady I already had issues with was my gate agent. When boarding started, I preboarded due to airline status and sat one row behind first class, port side, aisle seat. Once boarding was complete, the captain announced they had reported a minor issue to maintenance and then had fixed it themselves. They were now just waiting for a signature from airport maintenance staff. It is FAA rules that if a reported issue gets repaired by non-maintenance staff a member of maintenance has to inspect and sign off on the repair before the plane can take off.

We sat. And sat. And sat. At the 50 minute mark I had officially missed my connecting flight. I pulled out my phone, called the airline and rebooked myself thru a different city. I grabbed my bags out of the overhead bin and walked to the front of the aircraft. I informed the flight attendents I needed to deboard and have my bag removed from that flight. They called the gate agent as passengers cannot merely walk off a plane. It turned out that the gate agent was already walking to the plane. She announce that everyone needed to deboard the plane. The pilots and flight attendents all started asking her "what ARE you doing!?" She informed the crew that her supervisor had made that call.

Once off the plane I was the head of the line at the gate agent's podium. I informed her I had already rebooked myself and needed my bags loaded onto my new fligh. I gave her the flight number, the reservation number, and the bag tag numbers. She printed two new bag tags and I heard her call down to the ramp lead about my bags but did not hear anyone reply to her on the radio.

I found somewhere else to hang out and filed complaints with the airline for the hours added to my trip and the rude employee. I eventually got on the rebooked flight. This flight was also delayed. Then the next flight after that -- also delayed. I arrived at my destination to be greeted with a notification that my two checked bags were on a plane to Houston instead of in the Rockies with me. I made arrangements to have my bags delivered to my house, had my job canceled, and drove home to Wyoming instead.

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The next day my bags were not delivered. The day after I found that the airline did not plan on deivering my bags till Monday (day after tomorrow as I write this). I then discovered the required amount of profanity to get my bags put on a plane to my town so I could go pick them up. What a way to get an extra two days off...