Well, my back is screwed-up pretty badly right now. Muscle spasm fun. Yippee.
So yesterday was a travel day, coming home from San Diego (great trip, really busy, screwed-up the back, and EVERYbody I met was just so darn nice). Traveling with a screwy back isn't fun. Slowing up the security line a little bit, putting the bag in the overhead, airplane seats, all of that. But that came through fairly well, all things considered.
Was able to move up my flight from Friday to Thursday, but when I checked in I saw that I no longer had a seat assignment. Oh, shit. That's never a good sign - you just know they oversold things, and since I was possibly the last person on the list I'd likely be the first bump. I was scheduled on the last flight out and, if bumped, was then looking at getting stuck at a hotel and still traveling Friday.
Anyway, get through the first leg just fine and showed up at the gate for the short flight to our small airport. The gate agent was on the phone and I overheard mention of 11:20am flights the next day. Crap. Turns out that the load was overweight, not that it was oversold. They were looking for three volunteers. I normally don't volunteer for that; I'm former Navy and that's actually an acronym for Never Again Volunteer Yourself. ; ) But again, being the guy who changed flights to get home a day early, I figured I'd get bumped anyway. Might as well do it on my terms, not theirs.
So they were coughing up $500 gift cards. Okay, nice bonus. And that airport is only 2 1/2 hours from home. As I usually do when that last flight gets cancelled due to weather or equipment problems, I rent a car, find anyone else who wants to go home, and simply drive. I had them call up the other two people and told them that I was driving instead of staying overnight. One woman felt uncomfortable in those situations with strangers (no problem - enjoy your hotel stay) and the other jumped at the idea.
Made a reservation from the phone, headed down and got the vehicle. One-way rentals are expensive but he said they had a deal for $40 off if we took a minivan instead of the smaller car I reserved. Okay. Get down there, and it's a maxi-van-and-a-half: Ford Transit. That's a big honkin' business van, with passenger seats thrown in. Felt like driving a bus.
Anyway, finally to the tl;dr happy part.
My ride-along was a woman, another frequent traveler, and we spent the time shooting the bull about this, that, and the other. Nice trip, really, and we got in maybe 90 minutes after the plane landed. Turns out she used to travel the country in a foosball league, of all things. "Well, that's something you don't hear every day!" You never know who you're going to get when you grab random people to get home, but it turned out to be pretty enjoyable, all things considered.
Oh: the change fee was $200 and the rental car was $280, so the $500 gift card is a bit of a wash. But hey, I still got home a day early. I'll give the gift card to the local humane society since they can use it more than I can.
