Adventures with Marlo

In February of 2004, I was preparing to open a Curves franchise in my town of Savannah, GA. I flew down for training at their headquarters in Waco, TX.

Obviously, the closest airport was Dallas/Ft. Worth. My arrival was thankfully uneventful. I rented my car and drove to Waco and enjoyed a great week of training ladies on how to amaze themselves 30 minutes at a time. I thought I had given myself plenty of time to drive back to
Dallas/Ft. Worth and catch my plane, when it began to snow. Yes. It apparently snows in Texas. So I drove slowly, southerner that I am and not familiar with how to drive in those conditions.

I made it to Dallas in time and headed to the ramp to return the rental car. I'd never done this before. There was no one to help me or explain that those big spikes wouldn't actually puncture the tires, so I stopped right before the rental entrance, with cars waiting behind me. Finally some other rental car driver in a not so friendly way explained to me what to do (although there was clearly a little building where the Enterprise worker should have been to explain it to me instead.) At any rate, I drove over the spikes and they just laid down and did not hurt the car. Whew!

I returned the car and headed to my flight. I'm thinking of my 10 month old baby, Madeline, who I had had to quit nursing just before this trip and wondering how in the world she did this whole week without me and would she recognize me. I check in at the front- get my seat assignment and head to the gate.

Security. Crap! Forgot about that. I'm running late by this point, and need to get to that gate. After waiting in the line for about an hour, I finally get close to the front and realize I have about 10 minutes to run like a crazy woman to the gate before the plane leaves without me. Ok. Make it through security and run like heck. Make it to the gate and hand the agent my ticket. She begins to enter me in when a young man runs up behind me, panting from running as well. She
asks him which flight he's trying to get on...of course it's the same one. I'm thinking, "Why the heck are you asking him that, just let me on!" Then she asks for his ticket.

At that moment, I have no idea what happened. I have absolutely no idea what made her make the incredibly horrific decision she made, but she did it anyway. She let him on instead of me. Even though I was there first. The anger, rage and fury that surfaced at that moment were sides of me I didn't even know I had. Did that guy have a baby?! Probably not. And even if he had I can guarantee you he wasn't nursing it! And then the helplessness settled in. No matter how I
yelled and cajoled, they weren't letting me on the plane. And they had no good explanation. It was a good thing they didn't allow weapons, because at that moment I would have used one. These people did not deserve limbs.

So they put me on the last flight to Atlanta, where I arrived around 1 am. Then there was no one at the Atlanta airport to help me or the other passengers on my flight. We all wandered around looking for help. In the farthest corner we found one man who supposedly was to help us get hotels for the evening. If the airport hadn't been so creepy and I had not been a woman by myself I would have just found a stiff airport seat to grumble in all night. But fearing for my life, I figured I should stay in a room with a lock.

So they decide on a hotel for us, get us our rooms and we head to the shuttle. Where we wait for a good 20 minutes for it to arrive. When we finally make it to the hotel, I realize we are in the "hood." I may need more than a door with a lock at this place.

What didn't help was the reporting of a missing person in the hotel as I checked in. Nice.

I finally get to my room about 2:30 a.m. I deadlock the door, then expend any minutiae of energy left on moving all the furniture in front of it. I pray as many prayers as possible to settle my fearful mind and at some point remember to set my alarm for 4:45. Yep. All that work to sleep for 2 hours.

The next morning went much smoother and I made it to Savannah by 9 am that Saturday, very tired but incredibly happy to be home.

So how do I rate my airports? They SUCK!

-by Marlo