I finally got home yesterday afternoon. It had only taken forever. Just when I thought I'd successfully killed the layover in Houston, I get to the regional airline concourse to learn there's a delay. And it involved a mechanical. We finally shoved off close to an hour late. It was an agonizing hour, too. Don't get me wrong; I don't want to fly on an airplane that doesn't work properly. But spend enough time with the swarm of humanity in Concourse B and you'll be tempted to take your chances.
The flight itself wasn't bad. After being unable to sleep on the flight from Seattle, I finally gave in to the overwhelming symptoms and caught a brief catnap somewhere over Louisiana or Mississippi. We came on into the home field, and I did my usual routine of pit stop, pay parking pass at the machine, claim my checked box, and get out of Dodge.
As with most smaller markets, 90% of the flights into this airport are not mainline flights, but they're done by regional affiliates. I'm not really flying Continental into this airport; it's an airline that operates a contract service for Continental and paints its airplanes like Continental, but it's really ExpressJet. It's not the worst, believe me, but it does mean you can forget about some of the perks you'd have if you were flying the big airline. For instance, if you hold elite status, you're probably not going to have your bags be the first ones into baggage claim there. In my case, the little blue-and-orange tag has meant nothing there, and in fact mine has often been the last one on the belt. Yeah, it sucks, especially with all you go through to earn elite status. But the guys who work the ramp are the guys who work the ramp for all the airlines that serve this airport. To them, it's all the same. It's part of the monumental efficiency-expert-driven suck that is the modern air travel experience, and I hate it, but it's the world I have and I must deal with it, and as long as my checked item shows up and it doesn't look like this guy got hold of it, I'm okay.
But yesterday I went to claim the box of stuff I'd shipped home as checked baggage -- some books, some souvenirs, some clothes I didn't need on the return voyage, etc. I waited and waited. Nothing ever showed up. One of the contract guys who helps older and injured passengers saw me waiting and asked if I was waiting on something. I told him. He suggested I go talk to the Continental desk agent. So I did.
To make a long story short, my box did not make the flight I was on. I'm not sure why; there was very little baggage on that flight. (My guess is that my box was forgotten in the rush to get us going after the delay, and someone realized it too late and shipped it on the next plane in.) The young lady at the Continental counter couldn't have been nicer or more helpful (and will probably have a letter written on her behalf to the folks in downtown Houston for her efforts), and together we filed the delayed baggage paperwork and what all. She told me it would be in at 5 p.m., and I could wait for it, or they could ship it.
The temptation was there to wait for it. But I'd been up for, oh, 36 consecutive hours. I'd just flown all the way across the continent. I knew that waiting for that box to show up would mean not only killing another couple hours, but it would also mean dealing with rush hour, and with the way I felt I didn't have the editing equipment left to deal with rush hour. Plus, you know that feeling you get when you've been wearing the same clothes a little too long, and you've been sitting in dried-out air in close proximity to other people? You don't exactly feel your freshest, do you? Of course not. You really start daydreaming about being slowly lowered into a vat of Febreze and left to marinate for a while. I told her I really wanted to get home, and that I'd prefer to have the box delivered. So I verified those details with her, and we were good to go.
So that's what we're dealing with today. I don't know when the courier will be here or anything, but I need to be here when the box arrives. Some things inside are a little fragile and a litte precious and way irreplaceable, and it would be a shame to have anything ruin it. And as much as it's a pain to deal with this (and as miffed I am that my loyalty was rewarded with this happening), at least the box was found, and at least it was sent at the next opportunity. It's annoying, and a little of me wondered how they could screw it up like that, but then I remembered countless episodes of life happening in my own existence, and just sort of let it go. It's not going to matter next month, and it's not going to matter next year. No permanent damage was done to you or anyone else, so let it go.
As for the rest of it, it was a good trip, and the typical Seattle experience: too much fun, but not enough time to really do it justice. More on that later.
:: UPDATE: The box was sitting on the porch this morning when I woke up. A quick glance at the stickers on the top told the real story, and brought much laughter: It seems when the TSA was done inspecting the box (for its bottom was strapped with duct tape and there was the TSA "inspected by" tape across the bottom and a little card inside, and exactly one bundle of books had its bubble wrap disturbed and then taped back), the box was sent off with the other baggage...for the flight to Anchorage. So while I wasn't able to go to Anchorage, my box did.
I got the apologetic form e-mail from Continental this morning. But all thoughts of writing a nastygram are gone, because I'm laughing too much at what happened. I know they're a big professional company and that sort of thing isn't supposed to happen, but it's too eerily hilarious to get upset about.