A Near Miss of the Airplane...Oops!

Another epic travel tale!

Written: December 14, 11:08 p.m. (Eastern standard time)

About 3 hours ago: After a 2 hour drive to Atlanta from Athens, Charlie and I arrived in Atlanta for a relaxing and delicious sushi dinner before my flight to Denver. The sushi was tasty, the conversation was engaging, and apparently I was more relaxed that I realized. Around 8 p.m.ish we paid the bill and headed to the airport (about a 20 minute drive)...plenty of time to catch my 9:40 p.m. flight, I thought. We laughed and told stories in the car, life was good, in a few hours I would be *home*.

As we drove up to the airport "drop off" I suddenly looked at Charlie in PURE PANIC. FML...I forgot my purse at the sushi restaurant. "I have no ID!" (Uh-oh). At 8:43 p.m. Charlie put on his Mario Andretti persona as he drove like a bat out of hell. Back to the sushi restaurant. I cursed a little (insert many four letter words here) and then found some calm. Why waste energy on negative energy? Just accept that I am not going to catch my flight. In the meantime, my driver whipped in and out of Atlanta traffic as if he, too, was a crazy-ass Atlanta driver. As we sat at red lights, my mind ran right out of my mouth as I played out all of the different scenarios:
1.) I could pay an arm/leg to re-book my flight.
2.) If I run fast enough, maybe they will feel sorry for my panting ass and let me board the flight.
3.) Maybe, just maybe, by some strange cosmic energy force the flight will be delayed.

We arrived at the sushi restaurant at 9 p.m. (the same time that my flight began boarding) and AHHHH, the waiter handed me the purse, in all of its glory. Back on the road again. Now, it was the calm before the storm. Literally. To make matters worse, this past weekend I had sprained my ankle (pretty badly) while hiking...so, running to the gates was giving me more anxiety than normal. Somewhere during the breathing and panic attacks, we manages to conjure up a plan of action...arrive at 9:20 p.m. (according the GPS), leave my 50 pound bag with Charlie (yes, and the left/lost baggage saga in my life continues...), and run as if the boogie man was chasing my ass. As we are making the plan of attack, Charlie continues to talk to red lights to coerce them to turn green, while I focus on my breath. At one point, during a FAST turn, the GPS goes flying across the car (weeeeee) and lands under Charlie's seat (uh-oh). At the next red light I take off my seat-belt and put my face between his legs to try to fish out the GPS. I am sure the people behind/on the side of us got a cheap thrill out of that. Now, Charlie is wearing a BIG smile and the GPS is telling us we will arrive at 9:19 p.m.

We arrive at the Delta "drop off" and I grab my stuff and RUN! I try to check-in at the computer kiosk and it says, "Sorry dumb ass, you cannot check in as you only have 18 minutes until your plane takes off." ARGH! So, I run to the counter where the lady very calmly asks, "Would you like to try to run to the gate?" YES, and I am off with my boarding pass in hand. Of course in the security queue I get behind a diva with big hair, hoop earrings, and stiletto heels who is taking her sweet time to strip down to her bare essentials. After a minute of her fussing with her belt I ask if she would mind if I cut in front of her. In a Southern accent, she says, "Sure, sister!" Then I run, run, run (yes, as if I was in a movie) to gate A15 and the Delta dude looks at me with a very serious look in his eye and asks, "Boarding Pass?" He checks his computer and says, "Go ahead!" Ahhhhh, I nearly hug and kiss him...9:35 p.m.! Damn, I am lucky...

If you see me wearing the same clothes for the next 10 days, you know why.