• Home
• About CanCan
• Contact
• PR Submissions

Solo Traveler

If my calculations are correct, I have flown the US to Asia route 14 times.

On June 19, I did it again. With one fantabulous difference. This time. I was ALONE.

When I found out weeks ago that my husband would be flying back to the states before me, I asked him to PLEASE take at least one child with him. You know. Divide and conquer. The last few trips, I have been the solo parent, outnumbered by my two active children.

In the end, he took both children. Leaving me to fly with no children. Can I get a WOO. HOO?

However for all of my starry-eyed anticipation of more than 30 hours of solo travel, I feel like I had more hiccups in the journey this time. Was I targeted because I was single and awesome?

Was everyone JEALOUS and doing their part to make my trip miserable?

Due to a tight connection in LAX, I planned to travel with no checked baggage. Checking in to my flight in VTE was smooth and fast. I made my way to my gate and was happy to see an Australian colleague of mine would be on the same flight from VTE to BKK.

While I was chatting with her, two airport employees approached me and told me that my bag was too big to be carry on luggage (not true). I had talked my way out of this before (why am I a target?) but this time they weren’t budging.

Graciously, my colleague offered me HER carry on suitcase. I was able to cram all of my things into her smaller suitcase, but then still had to check the empty “too big” carry on.

I contemplated either not picking it up in LAX or pretending that it had been filled with iMacs that would of course be missing once the suitcase got to the baggage claim.

When called to board, I got extra questioning at the gate. My friend remarked, “Now you should have only one more “strike” in your journey, then you will be done.”

Mmmhmm. In BKK I paid too much for 20 minutes of internet service so that I could print out my boarding passes for my domestic flights originating in LAX. Then I tried to go through security. There was a man standing at the beginning of the line asking to see everyone’s baggies of liquid items.

I showed him mine and he selected a very expensive unopened bottle of facial wash and told me that it was 120 ml, and only 100 ml were allowed. If it had been anything else but the $50 facial wash, I would have trashed it. Instead I went to the bathroom, dumped out my contact solution, and filled the contact bottle with about 60 ml of precious expensive facial wash. Darn the man.

I got a massage (woohoo) and then went to board the BKK to LAX flight. Before boarding everyone is patted down and luggage searched. Men stand in one line and women another.

Lucky me, I got specially selected for extra thorough searching. Since I understand Thai I could hear the security folks saying to each other “ha sip song bpen SI DAENG”. Woo. Seat number 52 is a code red. Hecks yeah.

I asked in Thai why I was Si Daeng, was it just bad luck? But no body answered. They just gave keen inspection to the inside of my cool red shoes from the carry on.

On the flight I found I had a window seat next to a middle aged Thai business man. He informed me right when he sat down that he planned to upgrade, then I would have more room to sleep. I kind of fell in love with him in that moment.

After a few sentences of conversation, he was gone to greener upgraded pastures, and I spread out my stuff to mark my territory.

Within 30 minutes a flight attendant told me that someone else would be moving into that seat because their personal TV screen was broken in their rightful seat. Bugger. He told me to move my bag again and a loud mouth white guy appeared beside me, saying “Sorry!”

I didn’t answer him but his self consciousness took over and his bottom only rested in the seat for a few seconds before the flight attendant said, “Oh, your screen works now.” and he hastily moved back to his seat or origin.

“Why didn’t you stay there, you wanted an aisle seat?” said a female voice to the transient screen seeker. “BECAUSE, SHE (meaning me) IS PISSED! SHE DIDN’T WANT TO MOVE HER STUFF!”

“OH, well did she PAY FOR THAT OTHER SEAT?” Hey wow, guess what, each row isn’t sound proof. I thought about defending myself, or at least making them feel bad by asking for their airsick bags, but I didn’t have the inclination or energy. I hadn’t known he was hoping to score with me or something.

I thought I was in he clear but an older lady turned up with her bags and plopped down beside me and stayed there for the rest of the flight.

I mean, can you blame people for fighting to get beside this action?

On the flight I only watched two movies (High Fidelity and Jailhouse Rock), instead of my normal 5. And I did something I haven’t done on an airplane in more than ten years.

I fell asleep.

Maybe my “can’t sleep in public” problems stem from the anxiety of shepherding small children hither and yon.

Arriving in LAX, I went through customs and claimed my empty checked suitcase so that I could recheck it on to my domestic flights.

I walked for ages from the LAX International Arrivals to the Domestic terminal. It always leaves me gasping and on high alert for the “West coast hospitality” of the LAX TSA agents, who might hold some kind of International record in Jerkwaddery.

I passed through unscathed and arrived in Chicago at ORD at around 5am. I checked the departures board. My flight was: ON TIME.

I walked to my gate and checked another departures board. My flight was: CANCELLED.

There were no instructions about what to do, and the United Airlines customer service desk didn’t open for another hour.

I paid to access Boingo Wi-Fi so I could tell my family in Alabama I wasn’t going to be joining them anytime soon (I don’t have a cell phone in the U.S.), spent an hour frantically googling, then joined the masses in the customer service line.

When I walked up, I saw a familiar face from my home town, and I deduced that Kenyon must have been on the same cancelled flight as me.

We joined forces and plotted our escape while waiting in line. During this time I made fun of his iPad, a new toy he was very enamored with.

When we got to talk to a human customer service representative, she told us that there were no flights to Birmingham (BHM) for another 24 hours, and we would have to stay in Chicago (she didn’t offer vouchers or hotel).

Kenyon whipped out the iPad and found ten or fifteen options that would get us to Dallas (DFW) and then on to sweet home Alabama (BHM).

The customer service lady acquiesced, and woohoo, we would be home in 9 hours instead of 24!

We waited an hour or two at our gate. An old lady asked “What time do you board?”

We looked up. The gate had changed. And should have already been boarding. Again the iPad saved the day as Kenyon used it to locate the new gate. We were the last people to board before the door closed.

Quesadillas in DFW, a short plane ride to BHM that even had free GoGo Inflight Internet, and we were home.

My checked bag was lost and still has not been returned to me, three weeks later. Thanks, United!

Kenyon’s family even gave me a ride home from the airport.

I hope this is my last Murphy’s Law journey. Thank goodness this one was sans children.

Submit Article: Digg | Google Bookmarks | Add to Technorati Favorites | kirtsy | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us

Comments