i took my own advice and jotted down some notes about traveling from kc to chicago to boston. this was truly a saga, and given my frustration after just one extra day, i can't imagine how fucked up odysseus was. you know, back in the day.

let me start out by saying the kansas city international airport (airport code: MCI) is the most fucked up airport ever. it is designed to be as minimally used as possible, or something. it's basically 4/5 of a circle, with baggage claims, ticket counters, and gates all alternating through the whole thing. so you have one level, and you go in to it and check in, go left and enter your little group of gates (they group 3-4 gates together, for each security checkpoint), and when you arrive at the airport, you just exit the little mini-gate-zone and grab your bags at the claim on the right and exit.

i dont' think i can really explain the airport.

other than saying its fucked up, of course.

i mean, really, look at this map.

mci is quite weird.

anyways, we got there and decided to check in before getting the planned burger king meal. thats when we found out about giant storms over chicago and o'hare being backed up. really really backed up. we found this out when a fucking united airlines rep decided to laugh at me when i was checking in. i went to the auto check in thing and it told me that i wasn't going to make my connection. then it said everything to boston was oversold and i should plan on flying out on monday. OH IF ONLY I LISTENED TO YOU, YOU FUCKING MACHINE. i pulled such a joe morgan. i asked the rep what i should do, and started with "i need to fly to chicago..." and she started laughing. i almost started yelling at her.

i ended up checking in for my flights as they were, as united doesn't rebook you until you actually cannot make your flight (as in, it has taken off). chances of making the chicago->boston leg didn't look good, so we decided to check with other airlines. just in case. the only flight around that i could find was a 5pm that went from kc to milwaukee, and then on to boston, on midwest airlines. the person at the midwest ticket counter actually looked very, very shocked when i had the audacity to ask how much one ticket cost. of course, it did cost $647, so i guess she had a point.

at this point i was pretty resigned to missing the flight from chicago to boston, but i had hopes for going on standby and making a later flight. maybe.

of course, it was around 1:15pm at this point. we didn't leave kc until, you know, 5:30pm. it gave chad plenty of time to discuss the ins and outs of the walk versus a single. and we also had this glorious exchange:

chad: edwin jackson never progresses in this game.
niv: edwin jackson never progresses in real life

so yeah, chad and i had some motherfucking quality time. then we got on the plane, and we had totally different seats.

oh
BACK IT UP
beep beep beep

saturday night i'm looking to check in to my flight, and i see i'm NOT LISTED AS HAVING A FLIGHT FROM KC TO CHICAGO, ONLY CHICAGO TO BOSTON. this belongs in all caps because i actually already had this problem once, and i called united's fucking discount rate call center in india and was told it was fixed by someone who had no idea how to efficiently and effectively communicate in motherfucking english. anyways, it came up again for some fucking dumb reason and i was so pissed that chad called on my behalf. and i dunno, that chad, he got me a free upgrade to economy plus (more leg room!!!). oh that chad, what WON'T he do? i dunno how he did it, and neither does he, but it was solid. the funniest part, of course, is that chad himself (despite his endless miles on united due to his job) was sitting back in regular economy.

chad and i aren't sitting together, so i can't even talk to him during our stupid flight. it was uneventful. i half-slept, which is a theme for the next few days. we land around 7pm, which was probably a good 30-45mins after my flight left for boston. we see two flights leaving for boston (chad stuck with me for a while, because he's a trooper, and i guess also because he didn't have much else to do) - one is leaving from gate B10 (close to us), another from gate B1 (far away, natch). of course, we beeline to B10, which was scheduled to leave in 2 hours. we were immediately sent to B1, because the flight at B10 was MAJORLY oversold and overbooked and overstand-by'd. thanks, united.

airlines are giant pieces of shit. how do they get away with overselling every flight?

the B1 flight was supposd to leave at 9 also, but eventually was updated to show a departure time of 11:11, and then 10:55. i got on standby, chad left, and i was left to wander o'hare.

this is where the shitty wireless of o'hare started kicking my ass - the shit cuts out every 5 seconds, and every time it re-establishes a connection, i'm forced to log in again. this is a giant pain in the ass when you have a presentation to do on monday at work and you need to call people to tell them that you're stuck in motherfucking chicago and can't do it.

anyways.

the flight bounced from gate to gate. first B1, then B3, then B4, then B6. the departure time was unchanged, which was nice. i will explain why shortly. so it was increasingly clear that i wasn't going to make the flight, and it was also pretty clear that united moves people up lists who travel with them more (more airline miles, more chances of making it off standby - that's united's stand). it became abundantly clear at 11pm, when the flight backed away from the gate and i wasn't on it. me and the 13 other people who didn't make it off standby stood in line to get the little passes that said we were on standby for the 7am flight tomorrow (which we were told was oversold). after a little wandering, i asked the guy at the gate if they could do anything to get me a hotel room. i got a little slip of paper and a promise that i'd get a good rate. that's it. no "we'll pay for it" or anything. since weather was the cause, united didn't pay shit.

the paper was for some 800 number. i caleld it and told them a city, they told me a hotel to go to and the low, low rate i could enjoy. so basically they get a huge cut for referencing me, the hotel gets to fill otherwise vacant rooms at 11:30pm, and i get a place to sleep for like half off. i scored the airport ramada for $59, with the last shuttle leaving the airport at 11:30. see, it was nice that the flight left so promptly at 11.

i hauled ass to the bus/shuttle center (which is kind of a pain in the ass to find and get to), and made the 11:30 shuttle. i was on my way to sleeping in an airport hotel because i was stuck in a city for the first time ever. i'm so grown up!

once at the hotel, i realized i didn't have a case for my contacts. this came up at geoff's, of course, but like 99% of people with contacts, he had an extra case around. i asked the guy checking me in if there was a place i could get a contact lens case nearby. he asked the manager, who offered to drive me to dominick's, a grocery store down the street. a very nice gesture, i thought. incredibly nice, even. right then, a lady came downstairs to complain about being stuck in a messy room. i thought to myself exactly what people think in such situations, and then told the manager that i was going to the room real quick and i'd meet him in a bit. he told me to give him 5 minutes, and i was off to my room.

i went in, and by this time i was fucking exhausted, as you might imagine. realize that i was running on no sleep already from the weekend with geoff and chad, and throw in this terrible day of travel, and i was ready to pass out. i went to the bathroom real quick, washed my face, grabbed my hotel keycard, and went downstairs before i had a chance to sit down and thus fall asleep.

i get downstairs, the manager's waiting for me, and we walk out to his car. i'm close to delerium in terms of how tired i am, but i'm somehow managing. so the manager is a youngish, well-dressed black man, i would venture around 28 years old. we get into his pristine new car (no idea what kind, too tired, but it was american i think) and he turns the radio down to 13 from 20-something. loudish rap still comes from the speakers. rather than turn down the volume any more, but instead flipped the station to some sort of r&b "soulmate" radio show. i seriously doubt this show exists in boston. anyways, it was love songs interjected with people telling stories about how they believe in soulmates, etc. i thought it was fucking creepy, but i guess some people like listening to it.

it took all of a minute to get to dominick's, and as we pulled up to the front the manager asked me what i needed again. i said contact stuff, and that i'd just run in and get it. he stopped, i got out, and i made a stunning realization.

my shorts were unzipped and my belt buckle was completely undone. apparently i had bothered to button my shorts and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE after going to the bathroom.

read that again.

when i told geoff about this later, he suggested that the manager may have thought i was propositioning him, making the switch from rap to soulmate r&b all the more creepy.

i remedied this quickly, of course, and got the contact supplies i needed. we drove back in silence (similar to how we drove there, actually), and i thanked him about 15 more times. then i made it up to my room, set an alarm for 5 (i think?) and crashed. kind of. it took me a while to fall asleep, and if i claimed a full 4 hours of sleep that night, it was on the optimistic side.

i got my ass up at 4:54am somehow (right before my alarm went off!) and got my shit together and made my way downstairs. i didn't bother to shower because i didn't think i had much time; the first flight to boston was at 7am and i wanted to be there just in case i made it off of standby. i did make it to o'hare by 5:45, and from here on out i only have loose notes, because if the previous story didn't make it clear enough, i was fucking exhausted. 4 hours isn't even a band-aid for the shit i was going through.

i did get patted down in o'hare. haven't had that fun sensation in a while. they didn't find shit.

so i got to the gate where the 7am departure was leaving from, and honestly i never had a chance to make this flight. it was abundantly clear from the get-go, and i immediately regretted missing out on all the delicious sleep that i could have had if i just resigned myself to a later flight.

the next flight was at 9:30am, and i finally did something smart in my stupor-like state. i asked to actually get a seat on some flight in the future, so that i wouldn't be bouncing around from standby to standby in o'hare (ORD, by the way) for the rest of my life. which seemed, at this point, like a possibility. the lady at the 9:30 gate (B4? maybe?) told me that someone should have already done this for me, which made me feel great. then i got my ticket for the 1pm flight.... in first class. what? yes. free upgrade to first class. now if chad didn't yell for me saturday night, or if united spent $2/hr more and got NON-RETARDED people in india to work their call center, this upgrade would have just been to economy plus, i think. but now, i'm in first class, and there's no way i'm backing off of first class, motherfuckers.

predictably, i didn't make the 9:30am on standby - no one did. that flight was on a tiny plane and was also oversold. for those of you counting at home, thats 4 straight oversold flights from chicago to boston. united, you truly are a gem of an airline.

the next flight was at 11am, and i was pretty resigned to my 1pm departure at this point. of course, that madei t all the more exciting when my name was finally called. my immediate reaction? i'd rather wait 2 hours and fly first class. little did i know that once you're in first class, they sure as hell don't downgrade you. i thanked the guy at the gate, told the few friends i had made through this ordeal that i made the flight, and called jen. then i noticed that the departure was delayed due to mechanical issues. ah hell, who cares. 15 minutes at the most, they say? sweet.

they told us that the temperature controls weren't working, only they used a stupid phrase like "temperature regulation systems". they let us board the plane around 11:15 anyways, and i immediately fell asleep in my very large first class seat. i woke up around 40-45 minutes later. it was noon and we were still at the gate. the captain came on the intercom and told us that they couldn't control the temperature still, so some people would be cold and others would be hot, but the plane was fine and we could take off if no one had a major problem. of course, in a flight full of boston-y people, no one has any interest in 'waiting', and really, minor temperature inconvenience for 2 hours? the more i think about it, the more i realize that it wasn't a particularly boston-y phenomenon.

so we took off at 12:15pm. at 12:30pm, there was a huge bang. and then the captain announced that we were turning around and landing back in o'hare, which we successfully did at 1pm.

what happened?

well, apparently they couldn't control the temperature. which means they couldn't slow down the AC. the AC was going at full blast, and it blew down the ceiling panels right below it in the center of the plane (around row 20). these panels went flying to the back of the plane. out of the ceiling of the plane came lots of insulation. and then snow, because the AC was going so strong that it was freezing the air around it. so it was snowing back in economy.

it wasn't a huge issue, in retrospect, but i'm really surprised that people didn't totally flip out. there wasn't any crazy screaming or yelling, just lots of "what the fuck?" and "let's turn around". and a couple people who said "fuck it, let's keep going" (boston-y?).

so we landed back in motherfucking ORD and were told to move down to the next gate, so that we could be switched to new aircraft. notice, if i had NOT been pulled off of standby, i'd be on my way to boston at this point. and of course, as if i need to repeat it, i was unbelievably exhausted at this point.

we got on the new plane (same model, but not broken) around 2:45pm. our scheduled departure is 3:20 or so, which would put us in boston at 6:45pm eastern time, a solid 23 hours after i was supposed to be in boston.

an interesting note (and segue!) - you really don't realize how early they let people who sit in first class on, but goddamn you really sit up there for a while before the plane gets going. it's one of the many stupid things about first class, which i will now run through quickly, as this post is getting long and my notes are getting increasingly stupid. (what a graceful segue!)

besides being huge, the seats are just a lot nicer. they are softer, with a nicer outer fabric, and the mechanics of the headrest and leaning back are both executed much, much better.

here is a list of service-related things that happened to me while sitting in first class:

• served a heated bowl of assorted nuts (including pricey walnuts) and drinks served in GLASSES. and yes, the heated bowl makes a surprisingly huge difference
• got a heated towel to wipe my hands
• the stewardesses refill beverages really, really fast. like, stupidly fast. like, outback fast.
• got a full meal – salmon, shrimp, fruit, freshly baked cookie. read that again. they don’t serve food in economy or economy plus, those people just get a shitty bag of "fiesta mix" (whatever the fuck that is).
• 6 rows, 4 people in each row- 24 people. 3 people waiting on us. behind us? there are approximately 24 rows with 6 people in each row, or 144 people. and probably less than 3 steward/stewardesses. just a guess, but i think i'm right.
• first class makes me feel really, really dirty

so in my notes, there are 3-4 differently worded ways of me asking how much more first class costs, because all that service best be making the planes a crapload of money. well, geoff looked it up, and apparently its close to 5 times more ($238 regular, $1418 first class) from chicago to boston. so, i guess there's no way to bring the overall level up without losing that $1200 a person.

let's do some more math before i post this thing. if we accept my guess of 144 people in economy, the airline should have made (assuming no free upgrades and everyone paying the fare geoff found) $68,304, with $34,272 coming from economy and $34,032 coming from first class. clearly they made less than this in first class, as at least 2 people other than me were of the free upgrade variety, but still. $68,304 divided by the total 168 people on the plane makes the per seat flight from chicago to boston around $406. now, there might be a balance somewhere that gives first class some marginal improvements over economy, with everyone paying more and economy having a better experience than they get now, but it seems to me (and i'm sure there's a real economics word for this) that people would be more willing to pay the $1500 and get this ridiculous treatment rather than pay $800 and get a less exaggerated improvement over economy.

so..... we landed fine in boston at 6:45. around 7:15 or so my cab got me to my door, and my adventure was over. sidenote: if there was any time in the world i wanted to take a cab from the airport, it was at 6:45 on yankees-red sox day after i had been traveling since 1pm the previous day.

and that's it. my first ever hellish airport/air travel experience. it's unfortunate that it blocked out an excellent weekend in kansas city, and its also unfortunate that i have to get back on that horse this weekend. i'm going to hawaii.

thanks for indulging me.