I think I set a personal record this week: visiting 9 airports in 3 days.

First, I flew from San Francisco to Chicago to Cincinnati on Monday; then from Cincinnati to Chicago to Minneapolis on Tuesday; and then from Minneapolis to Chicago to San Francisco on Wednesday.

If you are a regular air traveler, you know that Chicago’s O’Hare airport is the worst. Two out of my 3 flights through O’Hare were delayed.

I was just beginning the last leg, and looking forward to being back home in San Francisco by the end of the evening, when, due to a delay, my Minneapolis — Chicago flight was very late. I thought for sure I would be spending the night in Chicago.

When I got off at O’Hare, I checked the monitor, and saw that my Chicago — San Francisco leg had also been delayed. Problem is, it wasn’t delayed enough: I had exactly 7 minutes until the doors closed. To further complicate matters, in addition to carrying my computer backpack and dragging a wheelie suitcase, I was about as far as you can get from the gate. I had landed in the farthest reaches of B Concourse: the last gate, in fact—a place even employees of the airport have seldom ventured.

But, not one to be defeated, I charged down the corridor, like a football player going for a touchdown, dodging travelers who ambled along dazed and bewildered by their Orwellian surroundings.

Finally, I reached the middle of B Concourse and took the escalator down under the taxiway, then ran across the people-mover with the florescent psychedelic installation art flashing and up the opposing escalator, hefting my suitcase in the air as I climbed the escalator.

At the top, I did a quick destination check, made a sharp right turn, and again zigzagged my way through the oblivious, sauntering crowd.

Then, with just seconds on the clock, I ran down the ramp to the plane and threw myself and my bags on board: touchdown!

The crewmember slid the door of the aircraft closed behind me. And, there, locked safely inside the stifling, suffocating plane, we sat for an hour before we finally taxied off.

Just another day in the friendly skies…

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 15th, 2007 at 10:28 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.