It’s been a busy few weeks for me, traveling around. First was a quick trip to Wimberly. Then a cannonball run to Reynosa. Now, I’m in my hometown in the DC Area.
I left Saturday morning, getting a Uber to DFW. That’s the way to go, since there’s a lot of construction at the airport. It’s better to get dropped off at the terminal than to risk the crapshoot that is parking and getting a shuttle to the gate. I got a heads up from my American Airlines app, telling me that C terminal was under construction, and checking in at A terminal, going through security before heading to C was a better bet. Luckily my terminal was D.
It was stormy the night before, and a bit in the morning as I headed out. I was getting power out alerts, but my neighborhood was fine. Got to the terminal, sized up the lines at the AA Kiosks, and opted for using the boarding pass in my iPhone wallet. Screw that. I’m not dealing with those lines for a piece of paper. Besides, I have the TSA precheck privilege. So I skipped the lines and heading straight to the agent in what I thought was precheck. Nope. They have a new thing now, touchless check-in. It uses facial recognition. Great. Grand. Wonderful. I don’t have that.
Go to the back of the line.
No matter. Precheck moved OK. Too less than 10 minutes to make it through. Scored some high octane. Tea and waddled to my gate. Saw this on the way:
A McD’s can be found at D34. This was at D7. For those unfamiliar with DFW, that’s a good 1/2 mile walk. A long way for an eggamuffin. You’ll pass many options before you get there.
So I settled at my gate, way early, to surf the web. Got more alerts. This time, I lit up my Wyze app too check the cameras. Nope. Powers out. TPTB, Oncor in this case, said by 4PM. So I texted the dog sitter. Then the app alert – new gate, A27. WHAT! I sat there a minute. Maybe it’s best, since I’m so early, to simply wait it out and see where the plane ends up. Nope. I figured I’d head that way.
The rail shuttle is D17 or so. So I picked up my crap and headed out.
This is a good time to point out that I packed like an idiot. Normally, I’d put all the clothes in my duffel and my toys in a backpack or messenger bag. This time split things up, and used a tactical backpack that I’d normally used for overnights, along with my duffel. I even ordered a new one, since I discovered that I had forgotten Winston chewed off some very important straps in his chewy phase. I realized that on the trip to Mexico. So, the duffel was about like normal, but my backpack was heavier. This would be a thing all day. Let me tell you, start doing farmers walks with the heaviest weight you can. It’ll prepare you for when you do something this stupid.
When I got up to the shuttle, there was a scrum on the platform. The terminal shuttle trains run in a loop, hitting all terminals. One goes clockwise, one counterclockwise. So everyone and their mother was stuffed onto the train. I’m not shy. I simply elbowed my way into the crowd. The doors shut, the train started moving, and DING! The watch goes off with an AA Alert. Now, Gate D27. So I get to visit every rail stop to get back to where I was. No getting off and taking the other train back. It’s not working.
Every stop was misery. I managed to ooze my way to a wall spot near the door. And here I held my ground. This is a primo spot. Go around. So I get back, and as I’m on the giant escalator down to D terminal, I was commiserating with one of the other wretched that just enjoyed the rail trip, when some nerdboy in a Wataburger uniform interrupted: “The train on the other track was broken and they have to push it out of the way with another train”. I looked at the idiot and suppressed the urge to throw him down the escalator. No shit its busted. What does that have to do with AA sending me all over creation?
By this time, I’m hungry. So when I got to the gate level, I hit an Applebees and had a burger. While I’m eating, another alert comes. Now, B11. Ok. This is retarded. Fuck this. I’m waiting. Eventually I wander back up to the platform. One train was just leaving. The other, although the status showed online, was nowhere, and there was a mob in front of it. Fuck this. D and B terminals are connected. So I walked.
Eventually the plane showed up. They came over the PA and said to hold up. Maintenance had to fix the toilet. It’ll be 20 minutes. 20 minutes come and well, the pilot refused the plane. To be fair, it’s not the mistake, it’s how you fix it. We boarded a new plane 1/2 hour later and took off. Three hours late.
The flight was uneventful.
Even though, I was having thoughts of never flying again if I could avoid it.
Inspected By Pat 