This year, however, joke's on me - I spent the weekend snowed in with the rest of New York City.
After a tacky sweater party and a night on the town with the HLP and EV on Friday night, I was actually quite proud that I woke up on time, showered, "put my face on" (as my Southern grandma would say) and got to the airport in one piece.
The line to check in was a monstrosity, and of course, I had to check my bag since I'd opted to drag the largest of my suitcases back to Texas in anticipation of cramming a bunch of Christmas gifts in there for the return trip.
As I got closer to the front of the line, I noticed that a bunch of the flights were cancelled. My outlook was not so good as I stepped up to the ticket counter.
When the Southwest employee told me my flight was just delayed as opposed to cancelled, I got so excited that I apparently made a great impression on him, and he instantly fell in love.
I'm not kidding, he told me he hoped I'd "come back and see him real soon." Weird. But whatever.
I made it through security and to my gate, but realized I was probably going to miss my connecting flight. While waiting in line to try and sort it out, I struck up a conversation with this guy from West Point. We started chatting because he was wearing a Texas ballcap - which was weird since he proceeded to say some not-so-nice things about Austin.
Obviously, I pointed out the irony of this, and told him he probably didn't deserve to be wearing that hat. IAAB, as me and Rach would say (I am a bitch).
He was also an inch shorter than me and dipping. Cleary a winner - almost as good as my new Southwest Airlines ticket counter boyfriend.
Anyway, I was definitely going to miss my connection and there were no other flights going to Austin. They suggested I take the first flight (to Chicago Midway), stay the night, and then take the first flight to Austin the next morning.
Oh, and did they mention, they weren't going to pay for my hotel.
The next option was to fly out tomorrow (Monday) morning. As much as I wanted to stay in some random hotel near the airport in Chicago on my own dime, I went ahead and re-booked.
Next step: find the big-ass suitcase I had just checked. They told me to go wait by baggage claim and that they would have someone bring it out.
I waited. And waited. And waited. There were no Southwest employees behind the downstairs counter, so I finally went back upstairs to visit my SWA boyfriend.
Clearly, he was overjoyed to see me. Clearly, the girl he was talking to at the time was not as A) I skipped the entire line and B) the guy stopped talking to her in midsentence to help me find my bag.
Fast forward 3 hours later, and he was finally able to find out that they put my bag on the plane to Chicago. FML.
At that point, I was beyond being upset and instead had reached the place where everything goes so wrong that it ends up being hilarious. I took a cab BACK to my apartment (yes, $60.00 wasted) and, as I was walking in the door, got a call from my SWA boyfriend telling me that he had in fact found my bag at LGA and that he would hold it for me if I wanted to come back and get it.
FML x TWO.
I had him send it on to Austin, where it will (hopefully) be waiting for me. While I'm kind of pissed that I missed two days of scheduled vacay in Austin, I have to admit that the first real snow that piles up in the City is pretty magical. It only stays this pristine for a short time before turining into dirty, runny, brown sludge. I'll enjoy it while I can:
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