Some Are Just Born WIth It

Some people are blessed with that special gift called travel karma. These are the blessed few who are selected for flight upgrades without even asking; those whom have never felt the anguish of lost luggage; those special folk who have never missed a connection, had a delayed flight or were manhandled through airport security. For these elite, travel is a wondersful adventure.

I am decidedly not one of those people.

It's 2:30 am and I just got home from London. I should have been home about three hours ago. I suppose that's not so dreadful considering my average crap travel karma quotient. Still I expect the worse fastballs that circumstance can fling at me will be hurled when I travel. True to her colors, circumstance threw a few sliders and even the odd spitball today:

-Kind of a shame about those terrorist bomb threats in London today. I knew I was in trouble when I walked into Heathrow Airport and it looked like a refugee camp.

-Waited in line at the ticket counter for 38 minutes to check in my luggage.

-Waited in the security line one hour and 41 minutes. Added bonus: A near body cavity search by London's version of the TSA.

-When they finally posted my gate, it was the furthermost gate at the furthermost terminal in all of Heathrow. I am wearing three inch wedge heels. The dogs are barking.

-Another near body cavity search at the gate by London's version of the TSA.

-Because of the security crisis that has sucked the lifeforce from the city of London, the flight is delayed one hour and 2 minutes.

-Full flight. Very full. Overflowing. When the man in the seat in front of me reclines, it sets off a domino effect for the next ten rows behind him.

-Oh, they actually feed us on this flight. "Would you like the pretzels or the peanuts?" Tough choice. "Both" was apparently not an option.

-Flight arrives 20 minutes late in New York. I progress to customs. There are at least 600 people in line and no one is moving. The custom agents are in their booth but their stations are closed. I am fearful. As it turns out, rightly so. After standing in line for 15 minutes, an announcement is made. The passport control computer system is down and we must wait until it's up and functioning before we can enter into our homeland. Turns out that was another hour and fifteen minutes to be accepted back into the USA.

-The luggage had long since arrived and was thrown onto the floor for general retrieval. It was a luggage free for all, with people climbing over mosh piles of luggage to retrieve their possessions. Honestly, I'm just thrilled that a) to be out of the customs line and b) that my luggage actually arrived. Maybe my karma is improving.

-I schlep my luggage into the terminal and it's jam packed with what appears to be the entire Dominican Republic waiting for the arrival of a flight from that fair isle. I tried to maneuver through the throngs with my luggage and as one awed Dominican stopped to greet the masses, he completely obscured the narrow path of the exit out. Here at last, my breaking point. "Get OUT of the freaking way!!" I screeched, which I now regret a bit having granted him his bad New Yorker story for when he got back home.

It's now 3 am, I've been awake for 27 hours and I've got to go to bed. If this post contains typos and bad grammar, I apologize but consider the source and well, please keep them to yourself.