The night before, my fiancé and I decided that we would wake up at 8am to be in Chicago at least two hours before DEPARTURE, but didn’t get up until 8:30ish (7:30ish Chicago time). It was my mom’s born day and I called her as soon as I woke up; leaving my fiancé snoring next to me. As you’ll soon find out later, I should’ve hit her with the pillow EARLIER. Around 8:40, I woke her up.
We scrambled around the apartment to make sure we had all of our necessities. We got on the road at about 9:15am because I thought we could get there an hour beforehand and still get through security in a timely fashion. To this day, I don’t think she knows this, but I calculated the time wrong. I forgot it took three hours to get to Chicago from where we live instead of two hours from where we previously lived. The two of us stopped for breakfast at McDonald’s (horrible, I know) and continued on our way with our favorite tunes blasting through the speakers of my 2013 Honda Civic.
We arrive to the overnight parking lot at about 11:30am Chicago time. I didn’t realize we would have to take the shuttle to the train, then the train to the terminal where our flight was about to depart. That whole process took about 20 minutes,so the time was ticking. We arrived at the terminal and begin to input our info into the kiosk. I don’t recall exactly what it said, all I know Is it said “boarding restricted” or something like that. Given the fact that we were already running behind, my stomach began to turn upside down. We waited for a United member to come help us out, but it was crazy busy at the time.
After a few minutes of waiting, a staff member came over to the kiosk and attempted to solve the issue. She reentered the information I had just entered and asked where we were headed. I told her “Thailand”. No offense to the sista, but when she said “I think you guys need Visa’s for Thailand” my confidence in her dropped to the floor. I was thinking in my head “I would’ve known if I needed a Visa the day I’m suppose to leave”. Given the circumstances, I practiced patience as she allowed my fiancé and I to walk right up to the counter so that she could further assist us. She stated that she was a new employee and was still learning (ahh, that explains the visa situation). She did some things on the computer and made a phone call. I’m guessing to the boarding gate. It was about a two second call that seemed to have ended abruptly. Her face said it all. “They’re not letting anyone else board the plane.”
I was pissed initially because I thought we arrived in enough time to get situated and I had never missed a flight before. She told me it’s different because it’s an international flight. Lesson learned. I know I’m not alone with this, but when I’m upset, I tend to let other things grind my gears as well. We waited in the additional services line where there were only two staff members working the desk. Mind you there were a lot of people like me waiting in line (one guy even decided to give one of the escorts a piece of his mind). The pissed off guy must’ve said something that sparked changes because right after that, three additional workers Came out of no where. We finally make it to the desk where we were greeted by another sista’. She seemed to have a better grip on things and was able to sort some things out. She pulled some strings and was able to get us a flight for the next day, same time. I was relieved, but still kind of bummed that we would eventually miss out on two days of our trip, but it was better than nothing.
We gathered our luggage, hopped back on the train, then shuttle, back to the lot. What to do? It was a random Wednesday afternoon. We decided that we would be at the airport first thing in the morning just to be on the safe side. I still needed a few small things for the trip, so we made a mall run. I originally Intended to shop in Bangkok, but since we had some time on our hands, I figured I may as well. After the mall, Joe’s Crab Shack was the next move. Before our food came out, I called to make some switches on our itinerary.
After doing damage in Joe’s, we decided that we would put our planet fitness black cards to use and go take showers at the gym instead of wasting trip money on a hotel for a few hours; this was clutch. It was pouring down raining in the Chi the whole night. Eventually, we drove back to the overnight lot and did the best we could at turning my Honda Civic into a camper. Blanket, check, airplane pillows, check, charged laptop, check, hotspot for the Netflix, check, snacks, check again. All we had to do was push the two front seats up as far as they could go and wala. All I remember is talking about buying campers and by the time I knew it, it was the next morning.
MyMelaninJourney 