This is a true story. No names have been changed to protect the innocent or guilty and details have not been embellished for the sake of drama. This really happened.
I was scheduled to fly out of Sacramento at 7am on Southwest this last Wednesday. The Federal Government paid for my ticket so I could do an interview for an upcoming Federal trial. I have friends in San Diego and I arranged my travel so I could get there early and stay until late the next day. This was all supposed to be very simple, but what it turned into was a complete mess. On Wednesday morning, I got up at 4am, got ready, got packed (no checked luggage, just a backpack), ate some cereal and at 5am I left for the airport. At 6am, I arrived at the airport. At this point, I should mention that I am not a happy flier. The last time I was in a plane was 2006 and it was a bad experience. I get so nervous that the day after a flight, all of my muscles are sore from being so tense and I’m mentally exhausted from the stress of it all. So I’m stressing about the flight, nervous about my interview, but also excited to get it all over with so I can see my friends. Here was what my plans were for the trip. (I’m kind of a planner):
4:00am – Wake up
5:00am – Leave for airport
6:00am – Arrive at airport
7:00am – Catch flight to San Diego
8:30am – Arrive in San Diego and meet my friend Deb’s daughter for a ride to Deb’s house (Deb is still at work).
9:00am – Arrive Deb’s house, relax a bit, get settled
10:30am – Leave for lunch with an old friend
11:00am - Meet my old friend (former boss from my Navy days in Hawaii) in Coronado for drinks and lunch
12:30pm – Leave for Naval Station
1:00pm – Arrive at Naval Station for interview
Unknown time – Go back to Deb’s house and relax/nap
6:00pm – Arrive at Laura and Luis’ house for dinner and catching up
Unknown time - Head back to Deb’s house
All next day – Spend time with Deb
9:45pm – Catch flight back to Sacramento
This is not a complicated schedule and if things changed a bit, I can deal with it, but here’s what ended up happening:
4:00am – Wake up
5:00am – Leave for airport
6:00am – Arrive at airport
6:30am – Flight is delayed (mechanical issue)
7:30am – Flight cancelled (before the airline desk person made the announcement, Deb’s daughter called and told me she saw online that it was cancelled…she knew before I did).
7:30-8:30am – No updates from the airline
8:30am – I got in a line at the gate desk with only four people in front of me
9:00am – Finally my turn to speak with the airline person about getting on another flight
9:15am – With all San Diego flights full until 5:00pm, I get booked on a flight to Ontario, Ca
9:20am – Make arrangements to get a rental car when I arrive in Ontario so I can drive to San Diego
9:25am – Run to the bar to chug a beer before I board the flight (it cost $9.15 but was totally worth it and got me through the flight)
9:30am – Board flight to Ontario
11:00am – Arrive in Ontario
11:15am – Arrive at rental car desk
11:20am – Lose my wallet with everything I need in it
11:30am – Get my wallet back after someone finally decided to look in the lost and found for me.
11:35am – Begin drive to San Diego
I had already called my old boss and told him I couldn’t make it and contacted the interviewer and told her I would be late. She told me to call when I got to San Diego and we would arrange for a new interview time for later that day.
1:15pm – Arrive at the San Diego airport to drop off the rental car.
1:20pm – Realize my rental car company is not located with ALL the other rental car companies.
1:21pm - Pull over into an empty parking lot to call the rental car company to get their address and directions
1:24pm – Pull out of parking lot and begin driving to rental car location
1:24pm – Get into car accident (no injuries and not my fault, but my rental is in bad shape from the driver’s side door all the way back).
1:25pm – Exchange information with disgruntled TSA employee (again, it was her fault…I have pictures but somehow she is blaming me).
1:30pm – Deb’s daughter Heather sees me on the side of the road and pulls over (she was in the wrong location too).
1:45pm – Heather and I begin driving again to rental car location in separate cars
1:48- 2:00pm – drive around searching for rental car location, unsuccessfully
2:00pm – Heather says “Oh, I have GPS. Should we plug that in?”
2:00pm – I say “Um, yes please”.
2:02pm – Once again, begin drive to rental car location
2:08pm – Arrive at rental car location
2:08pm – Sort out the whole accident mess.
2:25pm – Leave rental place with Heather
2:30pm – Call interviewer and left a message
2:45pm – Arrive at Deb’s house with Heather
3:30pm – Interviewer call me back and wants to meet in 20 minutes
3:31pm – Leave to meet interviewer
3:50pm – I get lost on my way to Naval Station San Diego and call Deb twice to get me back on track
3:55pm – Arrive at Naval Station Pass and ID office (I no longer have a military ID and can’t get on base by myself. Interviewer is planning on getting me a pass so I can follow her on base in Deb’s car.)
4:10pm – Meet interviewer at Pass and ID office (she was also lost).
4:10–4:20pm – Interviewer discusses with Pass and ID clerk her frustration about how on other bases she is allowed to escort people on base and doesn’t understand why she is not being allowed to do so now.
4:20pm – We leave in separate cars to park my car “somewhere” so I can drive with her in her car to the interview location.
Okay, this is taking forever and I don’t want to bore you (too late?) so I’ll just summarize the rest. She pulls out of the parking lot, I follow in Deb’s car and we wait at a red light forever! It literally never turned green so we get into another lane and turn toward the base gate. Sure enough, she is able to talk the gate guard into allowing me to get on base with my driver’s license as an ID. I soon found out that despite the directions to the interview location being sent to me from her via email, she has never actually been to the base legal office. The directions seemed very simple, but were actually just vague and as we soon found out, incorrect. I followed her all over base for about 20 minutes until one of the other interviewers called her back to direct us to the office. We finally get to the office and I see a friend that I haven’t seen in almost 11 years standing in the foyer. I rush passed the 5 other interviewers waiting there for me to give him a hug. I may have come off a little rude, but I got caught up in the moment. So finally the interview starts and lasts over 2 hours and by the time I get out, I’m 40 minutes late for dinner at Laura and Luis’. I call them, tell them I’m on my way, and I leave the base and get to their house. I had only eaten breakfast at 5am and a bean burrito just before I got to Deb’s house so I was really hungry and they fed me some yummy pasta. What followed was an awesome evening of catching up with friends. They had me laughing so hard that the horrible day I had seemed to disappear as quickly as the first beer they gave me. That evening with Laura and Luis made everything I had been through that day worth it (although I was still very much exhausted by it all). I spent the entire next day with Deb and despite the mess I had been in the day before, I considered my trip to San Diego a success. Of course, when Deb dropped me off at the airport that night, I learned that my flight was delayed. Uhhhhgggg! So, I got in at 1am, watched The Real Housewives of New York until 1:45am, and went to bed at about 2am. I’m still recovering today but my husband really did a good job with the boys while I was gone. So with everything else that was going on, the one thing I never had to worry about was how things were at home. At the end of it all, I just feel really thankful that I have such incredible family and friends. After all that, I still feel very lucky.
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