This is not about you.

When the flickering lights fade at last 
into the night sky,
and the cool breeze of autumn creeps silently
into its ditches and alleys,
calm descends in earnest upon 
those dreaming exiles of a decayed existence.
An eerie silence 
deploys her claws unto the world outside, 
forcing all subordinates to abandon
their noble quests 
and succumb to an encompassing, personal denial
as memory betrays an apathetic fate to the dreamers.
Thought, like all prisoners, 
drags its weary bones along that deep, black highway. 
Not searching for an escape so much as an answer. 
And as the magnitude of the universe 
converges upon itself,
causing a sudden and grand collapse,
all that I can do is sit here 
in the yellow lamplight
and think of you

Something I should have realized a long time ago

I’m going to make a bold statement that is going to anger a lot of people. If you are an artist, and you want to be a great one, you cannot do anything else. You can’t have another job. You can’t work Monday-Friday during the day and then expect to create something at night when you are exhausted and thinking about how early you have to get up for work the next day. You can’t focus your energies on something else for a significant chunk of your week and then still give everything that you have to give to a play or painting or song. You can’t do it. You can’t. Because human beings can’t function at 100% all of the time. So if you are devoting your time and brain function to a job that is just a job, it is taking away from your art. It is making it impossible for you to create because all you will be giving your art is what is left over.

The problem we create for ourselves is that we need money, and art does not always, does not usually, does not ever sustain us financially despite sustaining us emotionally and aesthetically and physically and spiritually and psychologically. So we are caught in this horrific pattern of needing to make money that does not sustain us in any way that matters but not having the time to balance the two. I can work a full-time job, and I can make enough money to live comfortably, but I can never be what I should be as I should be it if I do that. The other problem I encounter is that unless you are an artist or of a similar mindset, you don’t understand that. You don’t support it. You think I am lazy and a fool. How dare I spend my days laying on the balcony writing and my nights at rehearsal when neither pays me enough to make rent? How dare I not conform to the American dream of a husband and babies and a white picket fence working 40-50 hours a week to pay for it all and never feeling fulfilled and wasting my talent trapped in a cubicle? How can I not be satisfied to merely make a good wage and accrue vacation time with nice albeit slightly boring people and count the days and the hours until I can retire? Can’t I be an artist on the weekends?

It’s not that I don’t want to do any of those things (except the husband and babies part). It’s that I can’t. I cannot live any other way. I need to be in the theatre, and if that doesn’t pay me for the next 20 years or not at all, so be it. It is what I need to do and how I need to live. Because I need to live and not exist. I wasted 9 years of my life trying to conform to society’s expectations, and I can’t do it anymore. I was a miserable shell of the person I am and the person I should be. It’s time to jump. It’s time for life to begin. It’s time to be me.

Reasons To Take Public Transportation (or at least why I should)

I'm not a person who travels with specific plans.  The sooner you learn that about me, the better.  Since I fly on a standby basis, I am never 100% certain that I will make it to my intended destination on the day I planned or at all.  Maybe I'll land in Frankfurt and the flight to Lisbon will be oversold and I will be forced to go to Prague instead.  For this reason, I rarely book lodging or transportation at my first choice of destinations in advance.  I don't want to be on the hook for a rental car in Tokyo when I had to reroute to Seoul because the flights looked better.  For this reason, there are not many people who I can/will travel with.  I usually travel alone.  My last excursion, however, I had the pleasure of exploring Italy with 4 of my favorite people.  It was a trip vaguely planned about 6 months ago that had fizzled so I went to the Middle East instead but kept the idea in the back of my mind and kept sporadically bringing it up to them.  Finally, I decided to just tell them I was going and whoever wanted to join me could join me.  Thankfully, they all did.  I was a little nervous about the size of the group, but they are all experienced travelers and generally awesome people, so I was more excited than apprehensive.  It is one of those groups that, when we get together, we spend the majority of our time in tears from laughing.  Add in the good Italian wine, and we were set up for a great trip.  Since this whole zany scheme was my idea, and I didn't want them all to kill me, I rented a villa in Tuscany on a vineyard that was in a location rustic enough to get the true sense of Tuscany while still being close enough to Florence and Siena to enjoy the city perks.  None of us had ever been to the region before, and we were all in serious need of a vacation after the horrific, traumatizing, insanity of working at an airport during the Christmas season. Monica and I met in Philadelphia the night before our flight to Rome.  Josh and Shenequa met us in Philly the next day, and we all flew US Airways together.  Meloney flew Delta and met us there.  For some reason, this actually worked, and we all arrived in Rome within an hour of each other.  I had not slept on the flight over.  Partly because coach seats are extremely uncomfortable no matter what airline you fly, partly because the flight was from 3pm-10pm according to my internal clock, and partly because I was going to freaking Italy.  I knew there would be an abundance of coffee, and that was one of 5 things I knew how to say in Italian before I left, so I would be ok.  My Italian is not great.  And by not great I mean not good.  And by not good I mean bad.  You would think that this would infringe on my ability to drive in Italy.  I, however, did not think of that.  We somehow managed to find a car that would accommodate 5 people and our luggage.  This is no small feat in Europe, land of the teeny tiny two-seat cars and scooters a-plenty.  They do what they have to do.  With gas holding steady around 1.75 euros/liter (approximately $9/gallon), you do anything you can to maximize your gas mileage.  So we did the only logical thing:  rented a giant station wagon and drove it 3000 kilometers around Italy.  Believe it or not, the price of gas is not biggest hurdle to driving in Italy.  We (I) decided that we didn’t need a map.  We would rely on the directions I had saved on my iPhone before I left to get from Rome to the Tuscan villa.  Mistake #1.  We (I) had also decided that since we would be driving to/from Rome at least twice, we should take a different route each time to explore the region better.  For the initial drive north, I mapped a route along the coast.  It was only a few minutes longer that the direct route on the toll road.  Or at least it should have been.  According to Google maps, it should have taken us 3 hours & 13 minutes from the Leonardo da Vinci Airport to our home for the week.  It took us almost 6 hours.  Shenaqua was my navigator because she’s really good with maps.  However, we didn’t have a map.  We had a stationary image on my phone with directions written for a US roadway.  The directions did not make sense with the Italian signage, and we had no frame of reference to realize that every single exit would say it was going toward Firenze (Florence) when we got in the general vicinity so trying to head toward the city to get our bearings was not going to work.  We stopped at a café to ask for directions then another to use the free wifi to attempt to map the route again. After about 4 hours and approximately 16 blind guesses as to what road to take that turned out, miraculously, to be correct, we had made it to within 30km of our destination. And we could not have been more lost. We sucked down a few more shots of coffee and finally found the villa, but not before we found a store and stocked up on enough local wine to last the week. We drank it all that night.

If only I could tell you that this was the most complicated part of the driving experience. The next day, we ventured to Firenze. By this time, Shenequa and I had somewhat kinda sorta figured out how to interpret the road signs. We found it without incident. The great thing about this group was that we had no set agenda, and the plan was to wander around, find some cool cafes and museums, see the David, and basically just immerse ourselves in the city. To start with, we needed to find a currency exchange since we had spent all of our money the previous day on vino and groceries (ok, mostly vino). To do that, we needed to drive through the city a bit. Keep in mind that our car was approximately double the size of any other vehicle that we saw the entire trip. While attempting to find a parking space, I turned into an alley that ended up winding us up the hillside and around to an entirely different part of the city without an option to turn around because it was walled on both sides and so narrow that we had to pull the mirrors inside the car to fit. This was a two-lane road. I still have nightmares about seeing another car coming in our direction, because we would still be stuck there in an eternal game of chicken. There was no turning around or backing up. I’m pretty sure the passengers in the back seat shrunk themselves into the seat cushions to avoid having to watch as I white-knuckled us through the maze and finally out the other side. But we were not in the clear yet.  We needed to park, and we did not know how to read the street signs well enough to determine where we would actually be able to do so. After a long period of circling, we found a parking space large enough to fit our house-boat car. However, I had to jump out of the car and let Shenaqua handle the parallel parking. We breathed a sigh of relief and climbed out of the car only to be flagged down by a shop owner and (to the best of our charades skills) told that we could not park there. We climbed back in the car, found another spot where plenty of other cars were parked without any sort of permit, and went to find the David. When we returned, 4 hours later, the cars we had parked around were still there.  And so was ours.  Except ours had a parking ticket.  We were flabbergasted.  And pissed.  And we had nobody to yell at because none of the 5 Italian words that I knew were cuss words.  We spent the rest of the day in the city, and then returned back to our villa, determined to fight the ticket the next day. The problem was, we were staying in the middle of nowhere, and the closest town was tiny. We didn’t even know if they would have a police station. We stopped at our usual coffee spot (yes, by the third day, we had local haunts already) and asked where we should go to pay the ticket.  They didn’t know. They guessed that perhaps we go to another café near the bank. We went. They didn’t know either, but they suggested the tiny police station down the road. We went. They didn’t know either, but suggested the bank. We went. Finally, someone who would take our money. At this point, we had given up the idea of arguing. We had no idea how to go about it anyway. We just paid.

One of these things is not like the others...

A week later, we left the paradise of Tuscany to head back to Rome to spend the last couple of days before we flew back to reality. We had been in Italy over a week, and I was convinced that I was an expert Italian driver. I was wrong. Rome is unlike anywhere I had ever attempted to drive. I’m sure it is not unlike many other cities in the world, but I don’t drive there. I take public transportation. I drove in Rome…or, their version of driving. I believe there were some sort of stop sign/stop light signals at a few of the intersections. At least I think so. But if they were there, I was certainly the only person who saw them. The cars converged on the intersections from every direction, weaving their way through the opposing traffic in a sort of bumper car jamboree. I realized that I was supposed to join in when the taxis started honking at me. I inched into the intersection, completely convinced that we were all going to die. Cyclists and mopeds whizzed by us on either side with no regard for any semblance of sanity. Remarkably, no one was killed. Even more remarkably, the other drivers stuck to this bizarre gentleman’s agreement and let us through. I started wishing we had purchased the rental car insurance. I started wishing we had all rented individual mopeds. I stopped wishing things and got back to focusing on not massacring my friends in a horrible car crash. One of the many wonderful things about Italy is the people. And the people of Rome did not disappoint.  A random stranger must have noticed our terrified looks and directed us to a side street 2 blocks from the Colosseum. He pointed us to a parking place, promised us that our car would be safe and ticket-free, and then disappeared as mysteriously as he had appeared.

We all agree that it was the most fun we have ever had on a trip, and Shenequa and I vow to never ever drive in Italy again. Italy apparently agrees. 4 months later, I received a speeding ticket in the mail from Siena for going 8km over the speed limit. Really, guys?  I’ll be back. But only on the bus. 

That Time I Hitchhiked To Philadelphia

It started out as such a simple plan.  My friend, Barb, and I were going to fly to Boston for the Brewers/Red Sox series at Fenway Park.  She had never been there, and I had only been to the park once when I was 7.  We sat 3 hours in the rain, the game was cancelled, and we were leaving the next day so we couldn't use the rain-out vouchers.  The flight Friday night looked good.  We would arrive 2 hours before the first pitch.  We were waiting at the gate for our names to be called when the non-rev's worst nightmare happened.  The flight before ours cancelled.  For most people, this is a minor inconvenience.  For a non-rev, it's the same empty, desperate feeling as missing the annual Manolo Blahnik sale.  Instantly, the 20 open seats on our plane disappeared.  We waited it out, sat the gate in a numb despair until the plane took off without us.  We were new to the non-rev game.  We didn't have a backup plan, but we were enthusiastic (read: naïve) enough to scramble for one. 

We were going to miss the game that night, but there were still 2 games to be played that weekend.  So all we had to do was get to Boston by 1pm on Saturday to make the next game.  We scanned the departures screen for any flights going east.  The closest one to Boston was a Philadelphia departure leaving in 20 minutes.  We ran to the gate to see if there were any seats.  Miraculously, there were.  We didn't have a plan beyond getting off the plane in Philly, but we would figure it out when we got there.  The plane taxiied out to the runway.  Nothing could go wrong.  Except wait...what's going on...why are we going back to the gate?  I still to this day can't believe that this actually happened, but the plane returned to the gate, and the gate agent came on the PA.  They paged Barb & I to take our carryons and get off the plane.  Um what?  We were 2 seconds from taking off, and now we have to get off the plane?!  This must be some kind of twisted joke.  We gathered our things, and walked off the plane, trying not to make eye contact with any of the other passengers, for some reason ashamed despite having no clue what was going on.  We stepped into the jetbridge, the gate agent closed the plane door, and it left.  This time it took off.  

She explained that it had started raining in Philadelphia between the time the plane left the gate and reached the runway, and that it was now weight-restricted by 2.  Since we were the only 2 non-revs, they had to pull us off.  Seriously.  Seriously, this happened.  I have never heard of anything so ludicrous in my airline career.  At this point, we should have just accepted that the non-rev gods were against us and gone home.  We did not.  We checked the departure screens again.  We needed something going east, anything going east.  There was nothing.  Wait, one flight left to Cleveland!  That's east!  We'll go to Cleveland!  We'll show you, non-rev gods!  We ran to the gate.  Of course there were seats open because, well, who wants to go to Cleveland?  This time, we did not weigh enough to screw up the plane's weight & balance (again, what?!), and it took off just fine. 

About halfway through the short flight, we realized that Cleveland is not so much east as central Ohio.  And Ohio is not so much east unless you're comparing it to Nevada.  Were American schools better at teaching geography, we probably would have figured that out before we impulsively jumped on the plane.  We had no plan, not the slightest idea how to get from Cleveland to Boston, and no Siri (this was a couple of years before smart phones were the norm).  We had a half-formed idea that we would be able to find a bus, train, or flight from Cleveland to the east coast.  We would just ask the information desk at the airport when we landed.  Or so we thought.

I'm not certain if this is still the case as I have never been back there, but in 2007 the Cleveland Airport Information Desk was manned by 2 blue-haired ladies in their late 70s with a rolodex as their sole informational resource.  We had high hopes that they would be able to pull up the Greyhound and Amtrak schedules for us, there would be a train leaving within the hour, and we would be on our way to Fenway Park.  In actuality, they didn't even have a computer.  We asked what our options were for getting to Boston that night.  They were befuddled.  Boston, Massachusetts?  Why did we want to go there?  We explained that we had tickets to the game the next day.  Well then, what were we doing in Cleveland?  That was a very good question.  In retrospect, they had it together way more than we did.  We asked if there was a train going east that night.  The very nice ladies in the business of information told us that there were no trains or buses that stopped in Cleveland.  Yes, they said that.  Barb and I looked at each other.  Do not laugh.  Do NOT laugh.  We explained very politely that the Amtrak did in fact stop in Cleveland.  Would they happen to have an address for the station?  They consulted their rolodex.  They did not.  Of course not. 

We called our friend Adam back in Milwaukee to look up the train and bus schedules on the internet.  There was nothing running that late.  He would be happy to book us a hotel near the airport.  We told him we'd call him back.  Our only other option was a one-way rental car that would cost us about the same as just buying the car outright.  We had royally messed up.  We were stuck in Cleveland.  We had angered the non-rev gods, and our punishment was spending the night in a city with allegedly no train or bus stops.  We were about to call Adam back to book us a hotel room when we passed some businessmen walking toward baggage claim, complaining about their flight that had been cancelled to Philadelphia.  We had nothing better to do, so we followed them and eavesdropped.  After all, we were all trying to get out of Cleveland that night, so at least we had one thing in common! 

It took us a couple of seconds to figure out that the men did not know each other.  They had all been traveling to Philly on business on the same flight, but had never seen each other before then.  They all needed to be in Philly by the next morning, but there were no more flights.  One of the men decided that he was just going to rent a car and drive.  The others said that was what they would have to do, too.  After a few more minutes, they had agreed to rent one car and drive together.  The first man's company would pay for the rental, and they would all chip in for gas.  Barb and I locked eyes.  We hadn't said a word to each other the whole time while we were listening to them navigate their way to this point in the conversation.   We had both been thinking the same thing.  The men were now at the rental car counter.  We had a few seconds to act.  “Do we do it?” She asked.  But she already knew the answer.  “Let's go,” I said.  We went up to them, trying to walk the fine line between friendly and Fatal Attraction with our smiles.  We asked if we could hitch a ride. 

So that's how Barb and I ended up in the back seat of a mini-van with 3 complete strangers driving through the night to Philadelphia when we really wanted to go to Boston.  We made it to Philly at 4am.  We never made it to Boston.  We spent the next day exploring Philly then took the bus to New York to fly home from La Guardia.  About a year later, we told our parents the story.  At some point, they'll stop telling us how foolish we were.        

What is a Qatar?

I've been wanting for a while now to stop surmising what it would be like to start a travel blog and actually write.  The problem is that there are so many travel bloggers out there.  Everyone has their own niche.  I needed something to write that was different from all the other blogs and yet distinctively me.  Then I went to the Middle East.  The experience was amazing.  I saw friends who I hadn't seen for a long time, explored a part of the world I had never visited, and crossed a few new countries off my ever-growing list.  However, the aspect of the trip that inspired me to finally sit down and write was the voyage itself. 

I should start by explaining that I work for an airline in the United States.  This does not make me a travel expert, but it does make my perspective on airlines, airports, airplanes, and travel in general slightly more deranged than the normal pajamas in public, what do you mean I can't take my gallon jug of shampoo through security, packing carry-on bags so large they can barely fit them in the car but will still argue with the gate agent that they will fit in the overhead bin because they “fit the last time” and they allegedly “travel all the time” because once in the last two years they took a weekend trip to Las Vegas tourist public.  The main difference between me and those poor ticket-buying saps is that I fly for free.  I'll give you a minute.  Sip some water.  Throw some shoes if you need to.  Not the Manolo Blahniks, the ones you got on sale at Target.  Once you've calmed yourself enough to continue reading, please sit back down.

Flying for free is as great as it sounds.  In fact, it's the single greatest thing ever.  I have worked for 2 different airlines in the last 5 years, with a brief, traumatic, 10-month period where I decided I would rather make more money at a different job.  I promptly quit when I learned that I would have to fund my own travel expenses, thus negating the raise I was getting to work there.  And also, how could I survive not playing with airplanes every day?  I don't have an attention span long enough for office work.  But I digress.

My plan was to visit some friends in Qatar, hop to Greece for a few days, then head back home to San Diego.  I had procured passes on United and Swiss Air with back-up options on Lufthansa, Emirates, and Delta.  Oh yeah, I fly for free, but...BUT...it's standby.  So traveling for me is a little like those maze games I used to play as a kid where you try to make one continuous line to get around the obstacles and out of the circle.  For some, that might be extremely frustrating.  However, once you get used to the game, it's not so bad.  I actually find it rather fun.  It helps to make a drinking game out of any flights you get bumped from. 

For this particular trip, my flights looked good.  From San Diego, I was going to take Southwest (the greatest airline in the history of the world) to Washington-Dulles via Chicago.  I would claim my bag at baggage claim, re-check it at the United ticket counter, and then jump on a wide-open flight from Dulles-Dubai-Doha.  It was a through flight, so I wouldn't even have to change planes in Dubai.  There were 80 open seats.  Nothing could stop me.  I made it to Dulles 30 minutes early thanks to Southwest rocking their on-time departures.  I picked up my bag, checked it to Doha at the United counter, confirmed with the Customer Service Agent that there were still plenty of open seats all the way through, and headed up to the gate.  I had high hopes of getting upgraded to Business or First since the flight was so empty, but the screens at the gate dashed my hopes.  Approximately 40 people were on the waiting list for an upgrade.  No problem, the gate agent cleared me into a window seat in my own row in Economy Plus.  Good enough for me.  I could lay down and sleep the whole 13-hour flight.  We boarded the beautiful 777-300.  I texted my goodbyes to everyone for the next two weeks, not knowing where or when I would have access to wifi while there, and turned my phone off.  I improved my standby karma (it's a real thing) by giving my row of 3 to a pilot commuting to work in Dubai and moved to an open row of 2.  I could still sleep, and since he was much taller than I am, so could he.  The flight attendants expressed their appreciation by offering me free drinks for the entire flight.  Totally worth losing the extra 17 inches of seat to stretch out (See?  I was serious about the karma.).  We watched the security briefing video, returned our seat backs and tray tables to their full upright and locked position, and were ready to go. 

Except we didn't go.  We sat at the gate.  20 minutes passed.  We were supposed to have been taxiing out to the runway and cleared for takeoff already.  Finally, one of the pilots came on the PA and informed us that the ramp agents had damaged a cargo bin seals while loading the bags.  They would have to replace it.  “It shouldn't be more than 2, 2 ½ hours, so we're going to go ahead and ask everyone to deplane.”  Oh well.  It happens.  I grabbed my purse and the pilot, who by his own admission owed me a drink, and headed to the wine bar.  Oh yes.  The wine bar.  In the Dulles airport, there sits one of the better wine bars I have been to in not only any airport but in several major cities around the world.  Wine flights, a great wine list, knowledgable bartenders, and prices (for the US) that didn't make you want to weep openly.  We sipped and swirled our way through a Spanish wine flight and headed back to the gate to check the progress of the mechanics.  We got there just in time for the annoucement that they were going to swap us to another 777 that was coming in from London in 45 minutes.  The crowd was surprisingly mellow.  It consisted of about 60% Arab families and businessmen, 30% military, and 10% hodge-podge (myself included).  We meandered over to our new gate and asked the agents a realistic departure time.  They guessed at least another 2 hours.  Back to the wine bar.  Insomnia or not, I would be able to sleep now!  4 hours after our scheduled departure time, we boarded again in Dulles.  As I was boarding, I asked the kindly United chaps if the Dubai-Doha leg was still going to go since we were so late.  They assured me that it was as it was their only flight on that route for the day.  Great.  I messaged my friends in Qatar with the new arrival time (At this point, our theatre tickets for the night were ruined...well, at least for me.  They still went.), and was on my way. 

I slept the entire flight, awakened only on final descent in time to groggily open my window shade and watch the city lights as we were enveloped into them.  We pulled into the gate, and a voice came over the PA first in Arabic then in English instructing all the Doha passengers to take their carry-on luggage and deplane.  The voice did not tell us that the Dubai-Doha flight had been cancelled, but I assumed as much.  I exited the plane in search of any United employee to ask where I could retrieve my bag, since it had been checked all the way to Doha.  There were none.  United has one flight a day, and they contract their ground personnel out.  I followed the disgruntled Doha crowd to the transfers desk.  An airport employee instructed us that everyone had been re-routed onto Emirates and Qatar Airways.  Well, everyone except me because I was a non-revenue standby.  I tried to explain to the Dubai airport employee that I was a standby passenger and needed my bag back to try for a different flight.  After explaining several times that United would not be paying for me to fly on another airline since I was not paying them for the original flight, he told with way more confidence than I thought plausible that my bag would be at baggage claim.  I thanked him and headed downstairs.  It was still early in the trip, so I still had some faith in humanity, and part of me might have believed that my bag would actually be at baggage claim.  It was not.  Nor was there a single person associated with United Airlines.  Thankfully, the airport had free wifi so I was able to message my friends to tell them that I would not be arriving in Doha anytime soon.

           

I found a generic airport baggage service office near the carousels and pleaded with a very pleasant lady who had an extremely difficult time understanding what I meant by “standby”.  Eventually, she was able to reach a United representative on the phone, and they assured me that they had located my bag and it would be dropped at the carousel in “15-30 minutes”.  I messaged my friends to update them.  They did not hesitate to assure me that I would not see my bag for at least an hour.  Still, I had high hopes.  2 hours later, the lady from the Dubai airport brought me my bag.  I had missed the first block of Emirates and Qatar flights and had 45 minutes to catch the last Emirates flight of the night...in another terminal.  I ran.  I ran in suede boots with a 4 ½ inch heel and a dress that I had been wearing for the last 27 hours.  I reached the Emirates Staff Check-in desk 30 minutes before the flight was scheduled to depart.  I panted the situation to the man behind the desk.  He told me that they close their flights 65 minutes before departure, and I would not be getting on this one. 

The next flight left at 2:30am, almost 5 hours away, but he could not put me on the standby list until I changed clothes.  I needed to be wearing a floor-length dress and cover my shoulders.  Now, I was obviously aware that I was going to a Muslim country, but my friends had assured me that I did not need to wear an abiyah or hijab in public.  I had also not planned on flying Emirates when I left, so I had not researched their dress code for non-revenue travelers.  I had assumed that it was similar to all the other world carriers.  Typically, you dress up.  I was dressed up.  A lot of airlines are more lax with their dress codes now, but if you want even the slightest chance of being upgraded to Business class, you need to look as though you belong in Business class.  If you know me, you know that I dress that way at all times anyway because I'm a pretentious ass, but in particular I make sure that I look professional when I'm flying.  If the plane crashes, I want people to be looking at the pictures thinking “Oh, the tragedy...wait...are those Christian Louboutins?”  I want to look good as mangled wreckage.  Where was I? Oh yes, breaking the dress code and offending the straight-laced Emirates guys.  I apologized profusely.  I may have even conjured up some college acting class tears.  I explained what had happened with United, and I pulled everything out of my suitcase and had the now extremely amused Emirates guys pick out an acceptable outfit for me to wear on their plane.  I had no dresses long enough.  Thankfully, I had at the last minute thrown the only pair of jeans I own into the bag.  Those, they informed me, would work.  Usually, jeans are on the “no go” list for any airline dress code.  For Emirates, they were the only thing I could wear out of my entire suitcase.  I wrapped a shawl over my shoulders, and they gave me a boarding pass.  Then, since we were now best friends, they apologized to ME for making me change.  They wanted to assure them that they were not offended by what I was wearing.  They just didn't want to get in trouble by sending me to the gate looking like an American hussy.  Ok, they didn't say hussy.  I made sure to thank them with one foot already halfway down the terminal before they changed their minds.  I had my seat.  And 4 hours left to wait. 

Fortunately, the Dubai airport is actually a small city.  There are hotels, showers you can rent by the hour, a shopping mall, restaurants, bars, clubs, and I'm pretty sure a couple of subdivisions.  Everything might be bigger in Texas, but it's brighter in Dubai.  There are rainbow chandeliers and murals everywhere you turn.  I had to stop at Pinkberry for some Pomegranate yogurt to carry around just so I could feel like I belonged.  4 hours of wandering around in the life-sized Candyland and taking pictures of people passed out in their chairs (it was now 2:00am) later, I got on my flight to Doha. 

The boarding process in Dubai can only be properly understood if you have witnessed the running of the bulls in Spain.  I had not, and I was nearly trampled.  A lady with a stroller literally tried to run me over.  I would have thrown down with her, but I was flying for free, and I didn't want to ruin my boots.  The poor gate agents attempted to board in the zones on our boarding passes, but the entire gate area stampeded toward them, shoving each other out of the way and clawing their way forward in the line.  I think some of them actually thought that if they weren't the first ones on the plane that it was going to leave them behind.  When we finally reached the plane, the concept of seat assignments was completely lost on at least half of the passengers.  Some sat at random and then responded to the news that they were in someone else's seat with an irritated scoff and glare.  Some wandered, wide-eyed, through the aisles holding the stub with their seat assignment as if it possessed magical powers.  I directed a few of them to their seats, but I was exhausted and done with the whole flying thing for a while, so I left it up to the flight attendants to decipher.  They did a marvelous job of kicking people out of the wrong seats and directing others to the right ones.  It was a completely full flight, and it miraculously managed to leave close to on time. 

My seatmates were a party of 3, one Arab man with 2 women fully covered in abiyahs.  The man was sitting in my aisle seat when I boarded (He was one of the most successful at pushing people out of the way to board first.  For his effort, he was in a middle seat toward the back.).  He did not speak English, nor do I speak any Arabic.  I pointed to the sign over the seat and showed him my boarding pass.  He glowered at me.  I think he thought that he was going to be able to intimidate me into sitting somewhere else, but I did not even wait for him to move and started stowing my carry-on underneath the seat where he was sitting.  So he slid over into his correct seat.  I imagine his conversation with the women traveling with him was not too complimentary toward me.  But I didn't care.  I was an hour away from my friends. 

Emirates did not skimp on their service.  They were passing out water as soon as we were coming to the end of the boarding process.  They did beverage, meal, and coffee services on a full A-330 during a one-hour flight, all while smiling and engaging every single passenger.  I was impressed.  The bully next to me was not.  During the initial water service, he had tried to take 3 waters from the flight attendant serving our section.  The FA was very nice and gave him 2.  Their conversation was in Arabic, so I'm not entirely sure what was said, but from their body language, I gathered that he told the bully that he needed to serve the rest of our section and would return with another water if he had one left when he was finished.  My seatmate, who I will from now on refer to as Stanley Kowalski, argued with him.  Since I couldn't understand exactly what he was saying, I kept picturing him standing outside in the rain irrationally screaming “Stellllaaaaaaa!!!”  The FA never raised his voice or stopped smiling, but he continued to walk up the aisle passing out water.  Stanley became irate.  He demanded that the next FA who walked by call the purser.   We were ready to taxi, so the purser came over once we were in flight.  Until then, Stanley loudly complained about how rude the FA had been.  My brilliant plan to get a nap in during the flight was a total failure.  Stanley asked for a complaint form and filed a written complaint with the purser during the flight.  Every few seconds, he would seek approval from the 2 Stellas sitting next to him, and they would egg him on.  It was loud and disgusting, and I didn't know how to argue with him since the entire conversation was in Arabic.  Instead, I settled for “accidentally” elbowing and kicking him about 14 times during the short flight.  As we were deplaning, I took the purser, who spoke limited English, aside and explained what had actually happened and that the FA had done nothing wrong.  “I don't know how to say this in Arabic, but that guy was a boorish asshole”, I told him.  The purser agreed.  He told me that the “written complaint” had been filed in the trash can.  I thanked him, and stepped off the plane.  I had made it to Doha.  My trip had begun. 

                       

Swiss Air Hates Me (and other tough life lessons)

I would like to talk to you about a serious problem plaguing the non-revenue standby lifestyle.  It's called the weight restriction.  There are many reasons why a particular flight can be weight restricted, but none of them matter when you are trying to get the last seat on a flight, and then the seats start disappearing because they need to add more fuel due to weather en route or 2000 lbs of cargo showed up at the last minute that has to get on this flight or there is construction at the destination and they have to land on a shorter runway.  Telling a non-rev that a flight is weight restricted is like telling them that you just ran over their cat (I would have said dog, but I'm unnaturally attached to my dog and I can't even joke about such things.) or walked through mud with their favorite pair of Yves Saint Laurent pumps even though you specifically told them to not wear your shoes outside if it's raining.  They have rain boots for a reason, people!  My point is, weight restrictions suck. 

My most heart-breaking example was a few years ago when my friend & I were given the last 2 seats on a plane to Boston on Midwest Airlines (may she rest in peace...the airline, not my friend...wow, that almost took a weird turn

).  We were taxiing out to the runway with tickets to Fenway Park that night in our hands to see my future husband, Ryan Braun, and the Milwaukee Brewers play the Red Sox, and the plane came back to the gate to kick us (and only us) off because it had started raining in Boston and we needed to add more fuel and would be over allowable landing weight with the 2 of us onboard.  That's great for the self-esteem, by the way.  We ended up hitch-hiking to Philadelphia that night, but that's a story for another time when I'm certain that my mother won't be reading this blog.  Anyway, I was going somewhere with this. 

Oh, yes.  So about a month ago, I decided to take Swiss Air home from Athens.  Of course, we were scheduled to stop in their Zurich hub to change planes.  It was a simple 90 minute layover, and I would be back in San Diego that night.  Or so I thought.  At 2:30am, I left my lovely little hotel in Piraeus, Greece, and set out in my stilettos with my roller bag to the bus stop.  I was too cheap to pay for a taxi, and the bus, I was told, would take between 1-3 hours to get to the airport and cost only 5 Euros.  The flight I was trying to catch was at 6:30am.  I arrived at the airport at 4 and was told at the ticket counter that the flight was full and to come back at 5:30 when they would close it and start clearing standbys for the seats of anyone who hadn't shown up.  I found an espresso stand and waited.  At 5:30, I tried again.  There was still a massive line at the ticket counter, but they had told me that they would close the flight at 5:30.  With most airlines, especially on international flights, if there is a cutoff time, they mean it.  Not so with Swiss Air.  There were 2 other Swiss Air employees trying to catch the same flight who would be seated ahead of me (There is a priority list for non-revs.  If you are flying on your own airline, you are at the top of the list.).  We were told that they were still checking people in for the flight, and we needed to wait.  We stood a few feet away, on the alert for our names to be called.  Apparently, they were still missing a lot of people and wanted to make sure that they weren't in the line to check in.  Instead of forming a separate line to expedite the people going to Zurich and leaving the other people waiting for the Geneva flight later on in the morning in their respective lines to wait, the agents proceeded to frantically yell out “Zürich! Ζυρίχη! Zurich!” causing a small riot.  The people going to Zurich further back in the line rushed the people in front of them, knocking over stanchions, tripping elderly women with their roller bags (yes, it happened), shoving the people who had arrived for their flights on time out of the way, screaming obscenities in various languages, and destroying any semblance of civilized humanity.  I was horrified.  Surely, the Swiss Air staff would get this crowd under control.  Instead, they encouraged them, shrieking “Zurich! Hurry!” in English, Greek, and German louder and louder.  At 6:05, they had satisfied themselves that all the Zurich passengers were out of the line.  They finally acknowledged the standbys.  I was given a seat and checked my bag at 6:10.  I had 20 minutes to clear security and run to a gate that I had no doubt would be the furthest one on the entire concourse from where I currently was.  I took off, trying not to break my heels.  The Greeks were not kind to me at security.  They pulled everything out of my purse.  I had a small ziploc bag with liquids separated out.  They opened it and took every single bottle out for inspection.  They then meticulously re-packed my toothpaste and other toiletries in a second ziploc bag of equal size, stared at me for a few minutes, and handed it back to me.  I had 10 minutes to get to the gate.  And I was right, it was the very last gate in the terminal.  I'm not even sure that it was actually in the same airport.  I ran for days.  I made it at 6:35.  Thankfully, they were not even halfway done boarding and appeared in no rush to leave.  I collapsed in my window seat, and watched the sun rise over the Mediterranean.  Now, you're probably wondering why I started out by talking about weight restrictions.  Or you've completely forgotten that I ever brought that up in the first place and don't really care.  Regardless, I'm getting to it.

I arrived in Zurich with 80 minutes to connect to my flight to Chicago O'Hare.  From there, I was going to hop on the train to Chicago Midway, and then reunite with my beloved Southwest home to San Diego.  Worst case, 2 of my best friends live in Chicago and my family is about a 2-hour drive away in Milwaukee, so I would have a place to crash if I got stuck or delayed.  I cleared passport control and arrived at my departure gate a few minutes before they were going to begin boarding.  When I went to check in with the gate agents, they uttered the words that send chills down the spine of every non-rev everywhere: “weight restricted”.  They had 7 open seats, but they could not fill them...yet.  Sometimes, you get lucky, and at the last minute after the weight and balance for the flight has been calculated, there will be room for more seats to be filled.  I sat close to the gate while they boarded, feigning worldly indifference with the process, while secretly checking what other flights were departing to the US that day.  There was another flight to Chicago in 3 hours and several East Coast flights after that.  I was not worried.  There were 4 other standby passengers waiting for this particular flight.  I tried to size them up to determine if they were Swiss Air employees or another airline like me to know if I would be ahead or behind them on the standby list.  They were speaking German.  That was not a good sign.  But they were traveling together, so if one seat was open and they wouldn't split up, I could swoop in and take it.  In the meantime, the gate agents were doing their best impression of a Moroccan market trying to board the flight.  As the last passengers stepped onto the jetbridge, I stood up and sashayed a little closer to the gate podium to make sure that my presence and intent to board would not be forgotten.  The gate agent was whirling, trying to finish up the paperwork.  She crunched some numbers, made a few phone calls, typed furiously on the computer, printed important-looking flight documents, and finally walked over to where I was standing, still trying to appear nonchalant.  “You speak English? (I nodded) I think I can get you on,” she said.  She walked over to the other standbys and repeated the good news in German.  She told us she would be right back, and walked down the jetbridge with the paperwork. 

The plane left. 

A few minutes later, the agents still working at the gate received a phone call.  “The flight was full,” they told us.  17 sarcastic responses that would have ensured I would never be allowed to fly Swiss Air again instantly flew into my mind.  I took a moment, activated my non-rev sarcasm filter, and said “thank you, what gate is the next flight to Chicago?” 

They told us to go to the Transfers Desk to be re-booked.  There, a bored Swiss Miss look-alike (you know, the blonde girl in the blue dress) listed me and scanned my baggage receipt for the next flight.  1 espresso, 1 croissant, and 3 hours later, I showed up at the gate for attempt #2.  To my relief, there were different gate agents working.  I introduced myself and asked how many seats were available on the flight.  5...but they were weight restricted.  I didn't ask them what was causing these weight restrictions because they all seemed too flustered to function.  I can't imagine that this was the first time it had happened, and Zurich is Swiss Air's hub, their busiest airport, their mother ship!  Still, they were spinning like tops.  Every single flight.  I had been there for 3 hours watching.  Again, the flight boarded late, and again after the last passengers walked onto the plane, the gate agent told me that she would be able to get me on the flight.  She told all the other standbys that they wold not get on.  I walked up to the gate podium, determined to follow her down that jetbridge no matter what.  She was frazzled.  The flight was supposed to have departed 10 minutes ago.  She made a couple of phone calls, ran over to the gate next door, made a phone call from there, came back, and told me that they could not find my checked bag.  Considering how every other aspect of the airline seemed to be run, I was not surprised.  I told her that I had arrived from Athens 4 ½ hours ago.  She said the bag was not at the gate.  She had called the ramp to put it on the plane, and they could not find it.  She had gone to the gate next door to see if they could locate the bag on that side of the terminal with no luck.  She did not know if the bag had arrived from Athens.  I explained that it had been checked in late due to their total incompetence at the ticket counter (I did not say that last part).  She said she had no idea where it was, and she could not let me on the plane without it.  Ummm...what?!  I bit my lip to keep from losing my temper, and reasoned with her that the bag had to clear security in Athens to fly and presumably again in Zurich and therefore could travel without me.  She just kept repeating that I couldn't go without my bag.  It's possible that was the only sentence she knew in English.  She refused to give me a boarding pass for the last seat on the last flight to Chicago that day.  She told me to return to the Transfers Desk and find my bag.  I pleaded with her that I could file a claim when I got to Chicago.  It was not a big deal.  I could live without my bag for a few days.  At least I would be home without my Dolce & Gabbanas and not stuck sleeping in an airport without them.  I would like to tell you that she let me on the plane, but that would not be nearly as entertaining as me watching my last chance to get home that night fly away without me.

The plane left. 

I thought this was my ride home. It was not.

Muttering under my breath, I returned to the Transfers Desk in search of my bag.  Swiss Miss was still there.  I had obviously made a huge impression on her my first visit because she did not recognize me.  I told her that my bag was missing, and I was trying to figure out if it had come in from Athens that morning.  She took my claim check, looked at it disdainfully, and asked me why I wasn't on the plane to Chicago.  Except she didn't ask.  She shrieked the question at me.  I had already sent several disparaging messages to my friends about Swiss Air at this point, but up until now I honestly believed that there was no ill will on their part.  Just incompetence.  Now, it was getting personal.  I explained in a monotone that the gate agent would not give me a boarding pass because my bag was missing.  Swiss Miss proceeded to berate me for a solid 10 minutes.  What did I mean she wouldn't put me on the plane, how stupid was I to not get on the plane without my bag, of course I didn't need my bag to fly, why would I not get on the plane because of my bag, what was wrong with me, didn't I know I was a standby and needed to take any seat I could get, why, why, why.  About 3 minutes in, I started playing Breakfast at Tiffany's in my head from the opening credits to keep my cool.  Nobody can be angry listening to Audrey Hepburn's voice.  She's divine.  When she finished her tirade, I smiled and said that I didn't know why her co-worker refused to put me on the flight, but the plane was now gone and my concern was not trying to chase it down the runway.  I needed to find my bag.  She launched into part 2 of her rampage.  How would she know where my bag was, did she look like the lost and found, she dealt with transfer passengers, if I wanted my bag I would have to go to baggage claim, she didn't know anything about bags.  I apologized.  I'm still not sure why.  I told Swiss Miss that I was only following the instructions of the gate agent, who had sent me to her.  She sputtered that she didn't know why the gate agent told me that.  I said I didn't either.  Good day.  I went to baggage claim.

I still sometimes wonder if passport control sent someone to follow me after the third time that day I went through and had my passport stamped.  The first time, they let me through, no questions asked.  The second time, they asked me where I was going and why.  The third time, I was positively grilled.  My explanation that Swiss Air had stranded me sufficed.  I reached baggage claim, expecting another dramatic scene from the agent at the desk.  Instead, she was pleasant, helpful, and the polar opposite of all the other Swiss Air employees I had encountered that day.  It took her exactly 3 seconds to pull up my reservation and tell me that my bag had missed the morning flight from Athens but would be arriving at 4pm and had already been tagged to transfer to the first Chicago flight in the morning.  In retrospect, I should have left it at that.  I didn't.  I asked her what flights remained to get me the hell out of Dodge that night (I did not say that).  Newark and Boston.  Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world...Newark and Boston.  Ok, Boston.  At least I have an awesome friend there who would put me up for the night (heyyyyyy Joan).  She checked the loads for the flight, and shook her head.  It was oversold by 9, meaning 9 passengers who paid for a ticket would be on the list to get a seat before me.  Newark.  No, not Newark.  I don't want to go to Newark ever, especially not when I know that I will be stuck there overnight.  “That's the only flight with open seats to get you out of here tonight.  The flights do not look good tomorrow to get anywhere in the US.  I would go tonight,” she said.  But Newark.  N-E-W-A-R-K.  I asked if she had been to Newark.  She said no.  “It's like New York's dirty step-cousin that nobody really wants to invite to Thanksgiving because he smells like pot and body odor and might steal your TV during dinner.”  It's probably good that she didn't understand me.  Sigh, ok, list me for the Newark flight.  I asked her if I should wait there to pick up my bag and re-check it for my new flight to Satan's armpit (I did not say that).  She assured me that they would transfer it on the ramp for me.  She had already scanned my claim check to the new flight.  I knew she was lying, but I didn't think telling her so would improve my chances of getting on the flight, so I thanked her and went back through passport control (who this time made a copy of my passport) and to my new gate. 

For the fourth time that day, I introduced myself to the gate agents and asked how the flight looked.  Not good.  Oversold by 5.  But...the lady at baggage claim just told me it had seats open.  20 minutes ago.  Nope, oversold by 5.  Have a seat.  I used my time to look up hotels near the airport in Newark.  The cheapest was $200 before taxes with no shuttle to/from the airport.  I looked up every airline in existence to find a flight out of Newark, JFK, or La Guardia leaving after my arrival time.  To anywhere.  Anywhere in the whole world.  Nothing.  I considered staying in Zurich and flying back to Dubai on Emirates.  I considered jumping on the next Lufthansa flight out of Zurich regardless of where it was going.  I considered weeping and lighting myself on fire.  I did nothing.  I sat, and I waited. 

The flight started boarding about 20 minutes before it was supposed to depart.  Maybe it will be on time, I thought.  It was not.  40 minutes after the scheduled departure time, one of the gate agents walked over to me.  12 hours earlier, I would have been hopeful that this meant I had a seat on the plane.  At this point, I just hoped that she tripped.  “Would you like to ride on the jumpseat?” she asked.  The...really?  The extra flight attendant jumpseat for 7 hours across the Atlantic Ocean with no inflight entertainment system to a city I didn't want to go to? Yes, yes I would.  More than the Salvatore Ferragamo black calfskin pumps with the velvet ankle straps.  She smiled and walked away.  I...should I...follow her?  I did.  She told me to wait a few more minutes.  Fine, no problem, waiting, good.  Just when I was starting to think I might not have to spend the night in the Newark airport, she gave me a boarding pass.  A glorious, embossed ticket stock boarding pass.  It was the last row, an aisle seat right next to the aft lavatory.  Amazing.  I would be prepared for that distinctive Newark smell when I arrived.  I checked the Southwest flight schedule on a whim before we pushed back.  We were scheduled to arrive at 8:25pm.  The last flight to Chicago was delayed to 9:45pm because in addition to being a super cool, pleasant-smelling city, Newark has frequent Air Traffic Control delays.  In this case, ATC was my friend.  I couldn't believe it.  I could totally make the flight.  Especially since I knew there was no chance my bag would be there so I wouldn't have to stop at baggage claim.  Everyone had boarded.  I turned off my phone, and waited...and waited...mentally calculated what the new arrival time would be as we were further delayed, and waited some more.  We were an hour and 40 minutes late.  We were now going to arrive at 9:25pm, leaving me 20 minutes to clear passport control and customs, take the train to another terminal, get through security, and make it to the gate.  I could totally do it.  We finally left Zurich.  I have never been so glad to get out of a city that I love.

We arrived at the gate in Newark at 9:15.  I had 30 minutes.  Unfortunately, I was in the back, and I refuse to be one of the oblivious, self-absorbed flyers who try to deplane ahead of the rows in front of them.  I don't care why you're doing it, people.  It's rude.  At 9:25, I was off the plane.  At 9:27, I was in line at passport control, hopeful.  At 9:58, I was still in line at passport control, no longer hopeful.  I was officially stuck in one of my least favorite cities in the country.  Since I had already missed the Southwest flight, I figured I may as well head to baggage claim to confirm my suspicion that my bag was still somewhere in Europe, and I would never see it again.  I waited at the carousel until it stopped spinning.  It was not there.  I was positively shocked.  A United employee who was apparently representing Swiss Air at this particular airport told me to make a claim at their office for the bag.  I didn't have the heart to tell her that it wouldn't do any good.  I knew by now that Swiss Air would never be able to get me my bag.  Not ever.  They were not capable of it. 

I had my laptop, and a small carryon bag containing my purse, lip gloss, and a couple of pairs of shoes that I hadn't been willing to place in my checked luggage.  I was not adequately prepared to spend the night in the Newark Airport.  I was not current on my shots, and I have very little tolerance for buildings that smell like urine and old sweatsocks.  That's why I try to never fly through Las Vegas.  I wandered toward the train to at least make it to the Southwest ticket counter to wait for them to open the next morning.  As I was walking, I happened to pass the Lufthansa baggage service office.  Inside, a Southwest employee was talking to the Lufthansa agent.  This is the part of the movie that's in slow motion while a Michael Bolton song plays as I run in to tell them how happy I am to see them.  Lufthansa has always been very kind to me as a non-rev.  They are my preferred airline to fly to Europe.  I told them the whole story.  They were speechless.  After a few moments of stunned silence, the Lufthansa agent asked if that was a true story.  And then we all started laughing.  Me, out of desperation and exhaustion.  Them, because it was so ridiculous there was no other acceptable reaction.

My Lufthansa angel took my bag and flight information and filed a claim.  He was able to look up my reservation since both airlines are part of the Star Alliance, and discovered that when my bag arrived in Zurich, they had completely ignored the fact that I had flown to Newark and the bag was supposed to meet me there and re-tagged it to Chicago for the next day.  He asked where I wanted the bag to go.  I said San Diego.  He re-routed the bag to Newark to be delivered to his attention on the next flight.  He told me that he would retrieve the bag from the carousel and put it on the next United non-stop flight to San Diego, where he would instruct the United agents to walk the bag over to the Southwest baggage claim so I could pick it up when I went to work.  If he had not worked for Lufthansa, I would have been skeptical.  But, as previously stated, Lufthansa rocks.  I thanked him over and over and over again until I got a little self-conscious that I was sounding like an idiot.  He gave me an overnight kit so I could wash up for my thrilling night in the Newark airport.  The kit contained a toothbrush, floss, and toothpaste, a hair brush, deodorant, a giant white T-shirt, soap, shampoo, and a few other essentials.  I badly needed a shower, and I decided that this was the closest I would ever get to camping, so I had better make the best of it.  (Side note: I hate camping.  You can't wear cute shoes, and there's no running water.  It's what I imagine hell is like.)  I stopped at the 24-hour Subway in the airport to get a giant soda cup.  And there, in the Newark airport, I washed my hair in the bathroom sink, using the giant T-shirt as a towel.  It was not one of my better moments.  And after I was done, I realized I had an audience of junior high school girls who I'm guessing were on some sort of trip to the “big city” via Newark.  I'm pretty sure I traumatized them.  Or maybe they just thought I was Justin Bieber having a bad hair day.  Either way, I felt a little better. 

I wandered in search of a flat surface out of sight of the entry doors to use as a nap space.  The airport was freezing, and all the seats had arms.  My only option was to push some chairs together in the food court (which was closed).  I made a Burger King chair crib, looped my purse through my arm so nobody could steal it, used my laptop as a pillow and my shawl as a blanket, and started to fall asleep.  After an hour of trying to get comfortable and failing, my exhaustion took over and I was drifting off when I thought I heard a noise next to me.  I bolted up.  There was a homeless man trying to dig through my purse.  I was half-conscious, terrified, and so angry I couldn't even put together words.  I shouted a mixture of unintelligible syllables at him, grabbed my stuff, and ran back to the 24-hour Subway.  At least there were other people there.  Apparently, there isn't much security at the airport, and the doors are left open all night long so people can just wander in.  Isn't that terrific?  I love Newark so much.  Still reeling in a “did that just happen” adrenaline rush, I decided that sleeping was clearly not the way to go.  I bought some coffee, and sat silently in a bleary-eyed fatigue until the Southwest counter opened at 4:30am, got on the first flight, and finally FINALLY made it home at 11am.  I nearly kissed the first palm tree I saw.  And by nearly, I mean I did. 

This story has a happy ending, friends.  The next day I received a call from my friends at Lufthansa to tell me that my bag had arrived from Zurich, transferred to United, and should be arriving in San Diego the next morning.  When I went to work the following day, it was there.  I did not even fly Lufthansa, and I was not a paying customer, and they still took care of me.  And that is why I will never fly Swiss Air again, and I constantly tell Lufthansa how much I love them on Twitter.  At some point, they'll think it's creepy and probably block me.  But until then, it's just the right thing to do.