More on Why I Hate Flying......

Big ups to "Iowa Chick" and "UCLA Guy" for the good conversation at the St. Louis Chili's in the airport. My flight was to leave St. Louis at 4:05 and board at 3:40. My meetings broke up early due to an impending snow storm in Chicago where one of the attendees was heading. I got to the airport at 1:00 Central thinking I would catch an earlier flight home. No deal. In a twist of cruel irony...I could get home 25 minutes faster if I connected in, you guessed it, snowy Chicago. I went to the bar at Chili's to relax and have some lunch...and 5 glasses of ice water to rehydrate myself from Wednesday night (a future entry). I went to my gate at 3:35 and was told my flight was delayed 1:15 because it was coming from .......Chicago. We boarded at 5:10 Central and the Capt. told us we had a good tail wind and we would make up time. We landed at 8:10 (40 minutes late) and then proceeded to sit on the tarmac for 10 minutes because of "some mixup". We were all squished into a regional jet that put all our carry-ons into the belly of the plane...effectively making them not carry-ons at all. So, we now had to wait for our bags to be unloaded while the people that did check bags got to start walking. I was at the front of the steps to the sky walk so as the bags came on, a nice worker asked me to pass the bags back to the end of the line. So, I asked her if she could put me on the payroll. I mean, after all the waiting I did yesterday - she now expected me to smile and do her job for her. Well, if you know me, I'm nice as hell so I passed the bags back....of course...mine was third from last. As I was walking away, I asked her why on smallish jet flights they don't just say you have to check your bags but all of a sudden, she wasn't so friendly now that "her" job was done. Thanks. Buh-Bye. I felt like David Spade had just blown me off. I walked out to wait for the shuttle which got there in a record 20 minutes (heavy sarcasm). Had I paid a private lot to shuttle me, I'm sure the economy shuttle would have passed 10 times in the same 20 minutes. When the shuttle made the second stop, too many people got on and the driver couldn't shut the door so he asked 2 people to get off. There was a small disagreement about who the 2 would be. I hope that old dude didn't get hurt, but I didn't push him that hard and it's only about an 18" drop from the platform. I parked in 'B' and the bus started dropping off at 'K'. I got home at 10:00 PM Eastern. There is something very wrong with this process. It covered 813 miles. I drive 80 mph. Thats 10 hours. I left a meeting at 12:30 Central and arrived home at 10:00 Eastern. I could have taken anything I wanted had I driven. Gas would have cost me about $80. Somebody PLEASE remind me again why we fly?