I went to a conference last week with a couple of colleagues. We flew to Dallas Wednesday morning, and back home again on Friday. And we were cursed. (It took a while to figure out whether it was me or my friend Therese that the curse was attached to, but we decided it was me.)
- At the airport on the way to Dallas, I was manually patted down after the full body scanner deemed special attention needed to be paid to my waistband. (And no, I was not wearing a belt.)
- Our flight was late leaving Houston because the coffee machine was leaking.
- Upon arrival, our rental car reservation was no good because they had "no cars." In fact, all but 2 counters told us they had "no cars." One of those counters was going to charge us $140 a day to rent there; the other would only rent us a car after we called and booked a reservation over the phone for $60 a day.
- When we arrived at the car rental lot, the shuttle pulled up next to the 2 lone cars in the lot and said "We're out of mid-size, so I'll upgrade you to a full-size for free." The car he pulled up next to? A VW bug. In what universe is that full-size?? Or even mid-size?? Luckily, the one on the other side was a PT Cruiser. We took that.
- We got to the hotel and we told that they were overbooked and would need to bump us from a 2-double-beds room to a 1-king-with-a-pull-out-couch room. For the record, I do NOT recommend sleeping on the pull-out couches at the Hyatt.
- That evening after the conference, we went to a mall that had a cupcake place I really wanted to try. We walked in to the mall to discover there had been a power outage. Only the main hubs were still open - just about every other store (including the cupcake shop) had closed early.
- The next evening, we went back to the mall - the cupcake place had a hand-written sign out front: "Sold out! We'll have more tomorrow."
- On the way to the airport the next day, we decided to stop and eat at In N Out Burger, which we had Google-mapped. When we got to the location, we couldn't find it. We stopped a nice man and asked directions, and were told, "It'll be right here in about 2 months. The only location in Dallas is at {such-and-such} location, and I waited four hours for a burger there on Wednesday." We ate elsewhere.
- When we got to the airport, I was "randomly selected" to be patted down by security.
- Our flight left Dallas late.
Despite all of that, it was a pretty good trip, and I was very fortunate in my travel companions. :) Here's hoping, though, that our family trip to Georgia on Thursday goes much more smoothly!
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