Friday, January 2nd, I got up at 8:00am EST, and left on the 2-hour car trip to the Charlotte airport at about 11:50am. The car trip was uneventful, and we arrived a little before noon. The plane wasn’t supposed to leave the gate until 2:50pm, so John Blackburn’s 3-hour rule was essentially in force.

Well, there was literally nobody ahead of me in any of the lines: the e-Ticket line was empty, there was no separate federal checked luggage inspection line at all, and the line through the body scanners was empty. Empty! The guy at the scanner watched with approval as I took off all of my metallic crap, and asked me, pointing to the shoes: “Are those Rockports?” “Yes, you want them off?” “Please. Yep, I’m getting brand-specific, now.” Chris Gibson’s “shoes-off” advice, validated! I was all done, and into the “already checked, secure” area five minutes after my Mom dropped me off. Maybe six, but not seven.

So, I wander around, and get a BBQ pork sandwich, a little Noble Roman’s pizza, and a glass of wine (all of these lines are also completely empty), and sit down with my book, and it’s fine. I read my book, and enjoy the wine, and about an hour later I get another glass of wine, and the book is good, and it’s just extremely pleasant, completely stress-free. At 2:20pm, when it’s about time to mosey over to my flight, I wander over there, and it’s still listed as “On Time: departing gate at 2:50pm’ — perfect!

At about 2:30pm, they announce that Chicago is socked in by fog, that our flight will now leave at 4:00pm, and that we should come up to the gate and get set up on new connecting flights, if this means that we’re going to miss our old ones. There’s a huge, huge line. Freaking O’Hare! But then suddenly, it’s small; a lot of those people just wanted to check about their flight to Miami.

So I get in line behind this guy, and soon, he’s going to be the next one to be helped. Actually there are two lines, but this is our line. The clerk is helping…a lady from England who has a sick child, and is desperately trying to get back to England soon with her kid, so he can receive semi-desperately-needed medical treatment! There are no good options, but of course they really want to move heaven and earth for this lady if they can. This takes 45 minutes, but it never, during that time, does it look as if it’s going to take much longer than “just a few minutes more.”

Meanwhile, the woman behind me in line is obviously planning to try to cut in front of us, her whole body language screams it. The guy in front of me and I feign nonchalance — no sense in calling her on it until it’s time.

We wait for 45 minutes; the clerk is still trying to get a flight for the London woman and her kid. The other line is nearly empty. I say to the guy in front of me, “Wrong line.” “Yeah.” “I’m going to go try the other line [it had two people in it], but here’s a chance to go first.” “No, thanks, go ahead.” I go ahead. I’m served right away, and call the guy to come get in line in front of me; he declines, but does immediately come to get in line behind me while there’s still nobody else in this line. None of the other people in our old line follow him.

By this time, probably 3:20pm, the displayed gate departure time has drifted to 4:20pm. The clerk tells me that that 4:20pm time can’t be right, because her other computer says 4:00pm. I say nothing. She manually changes it back to 4:00pm. All better now, sure, I believe that (no, not at all). I go sit down; I’m watching the situation like a hawk. Fifteen minutes later, they announce that (surprise, surprise) the flight won’t, after all, leave the gate until 4:50pm. Freaking, freaking O’Hare! I jump up in line again, and am served right away.

The original London-helper person is free now. She says that Chicago is so backed up, that likely my connecting flight will be late, too, but just in case, gets me also confirmed on a later flight. So I now have an actual boarding pass for the original connecting flight, and am “confirmed” (whatever that means) on a later flight — this sounds good. They get us on the plane by 4:35pm, but then there are delays as they add more fuel, just in case we can’t land in Chicago or our first alternate.

I arrive at O’Hare about 1 1/2 hours late, but sure enough, my connecting flight is almost as late. I am able to get to my gate in time by means of a fast walk. But when we get on the plane, there is another delay of about a 1/2 hour. The final thing that we were waiting on was the cutlery for First Class. We’re all hanging around for (I swear to God) a solid 30 minutes, with many passengers at risk of missing Qantas connections to Australia, just because the folks in First Class can’t use a plastic spork for once in their lives. Bastards!

We touched down at LAX about 2 hours late, and my luggage had followed me there, too, so yay! Poor Sylvia had to wait 2 hours at the airport, but she had killed time by eating at the fancy airport restaurant in the center of LAX (her review: “It’s really neat!”).

But then she had parked in the wrong lot (lot 7 instead of lot 4), and insisted on going to get the car and bringing it around instead of just letting me walk with her, and then she couldn’t successfully get back to where I was waiting for her (an accident blocked that roadway section or something), and she ended up parking again and walking to get me. We finally got out of the airport at about 11:45pm or so, and were back by home at 12:30am, which was 3:30am by my body clock.

Another happy travel day.