or the blog post otherwise known as how i booked my flight to the wrong airport in a daze of stupidity and flew to the wrong town. seriously. i couldn't believe it either, because we fly to so cali and john wayne airport in orange county all the time. to visit the inlaws. to go to disneyland. and yet... i did it. i booked my cha flight to ontario. not canda {thank goodness} but ontario, california. 45 minutes north east of anaheim. and the story goes something like this....
about a month before cha lisa and i {well.. actually *i* as in me} booked our flights to la on southwest {but she wasn't able to come last minute... which sucked}. i swear i picked the orange county airport in the drop down box but upon arriving at the oakland airport i discovered i didn't, i picked ontario. of course i realized my stupidity after i had already checked in at the self serve kiosk. after my one bag, which i decided last minute to check in, was checked. after i spent 15 minutes going through the security check. after i walked all the way to the farthest terminal and then decided to look at my boarding pass. and i realized it said ontario.
so i asked the nice looking woman sitting at the gate
me : "this plane isn't going to john wayne in orange county, is it?" in a feeble attempt at hoping i simply couldn't read anymore.
her : "no"
me : "shit... i'm on the wrong flight"
her : "and you're just discovering this now?"
how's that for customer service. no how can i help you get where you need to go. she simply looks at me and says that i need to go back to ticketing. period. and that's when i start to cry. and run... all the way back to the ticket counter.
where i wait in line for 15 minutes hoping they can still pull my bag from the ontario flight and get me on a orange county flight. which they can't. so i decide to just fly to ontario. even though i have NO IDEA where in la that is. because my bag will be there whether i fly there or not.
so i RUN back to the gate again. and now i have blisters because i decided to wear my uber cute new converse that are not broken in yet and the terminal is way off in bfe. and i have 10 minutes until this flight leaves and i make it right before they close the doors. and i sit down and i cry again. and i call michelle who is my ride and tell her, which is when i learn that i'll be about an hour from where i should be. and i call mike and tell him and he says he'll figure something out, which he does.
and an hour later i'm in ontario. where i get my bag. and catch a shuttle to the convention center. and add another $50 each way onto my cost of going to cha. shit! but ontario is also where i learn a lesson that i think the universe has been trying to teach me for a while now. it's time to slow down. it's time to start taking notice of everything around me. it's time to be present. it's time to start thinking about that word i chose at the beginning of the year... it's time to connect.
and so i shall...
eta : i wanted to add i was fine once i got to ontario. i was actually laughing about it, chuckling. because this is just typical of me and the full throttle life i've been living lately. but it's a great story. and in turn shall be a great scrap page.
