The story that started it all...

Here's the story that inspired this blog!

If I were writing about my experience at BWI, it would go a little like this:
Bob and I left Skycroft around 3:30 p.m. for the hour or so drive back to Baltimore. We were hoping to make it to the car rental return area by around 4:40 p.m., two hours before our flight departure at 6:40 p.m. The car rental area of BWI is pretty far away from the actual terminal, so we knew getting there a little early was important. We ended up getting there around 4:50 or 5 p.m. and had to wait behind six or seven other disgruntled travelers for the Hertz employees to get off of their break and check in the huge backlog of rental returns. Finally, a Hertz employee materializes, gives Bob the receipt, and we sprint off in search of the shuttle back to the terminal.

We were elated to discover that our stop would be the first stop the shuttle made at the airport. So we grabbed our suitcases and took off for the escalators to the Southwest counter. . . .where we had to wait in a line that resembled the line for the newest roller coaster at any Six Flags amusement park in the middle of the summer. Finally we make it to the front of the line and each of us jets off to a separate kiosk to check in to our flights. After some 15-30 minutes of waiting in that line, we speed off to security, sans some of our bags. It's now around 5:30 p.m.

I'm thinking that we'll get through security with no probs, make it onto the concourse around 6 p.m., and I can grab something to eat somewhere in the airport. (As a sidenote, I love eating junk in airports. It's part of the fun for me. I was hungry and didn't want the granola bar Bob kept offering me because I wanted a real meal, dang it!)

I made it through security with only nominal problems. They scanned my purse twice, probably because it was packed with plane essentials and also probably because the X-ray of my phone charger cord could have looked a little creepy on that little screen. So we make it through security and I head off for McDonald's while Bob joins the line at Arby's.

Let me go on the record that I should have known from the line at McDonald's that I needed to get out now, but I ignored my common sense in honor of my stomach's request for hot, salty fries. And a Dr. Pepper. More than anything, I wanted some caffiene in Dr. Pepper fountain soda form. That was not to be had.

I'd been in line at a register where a girl was taking orders from the people about 2 places in front of me. The guy in front of me turned around to give me some important info, "They're all out of soda," he said. OK, I thought, I can handle that. I don't really need full calorie soda anyway. I'll just get a lemonade." After several minutes of waiting for someone behind the counter to come take his order at the station where they'd been taking orders just minutes before, the guy in front of me left in frustration, mumbling something about finding something healthier anyway.

OK, it's at this point that I really should have left, but I didn't, because I'd apparently lost all ability to reason. I quickly realize that the workers have quit taking orders from the register I'm in line at, and apparently done so without telling any of the customers they would no longer be doing so. I fall into the back of the line at the next available register, where a grandfather from New York is ordering his 3-year-old granddaughter a happy meal with chocolate milk from a highly disgruntled employee. She takes his order and shuffles off from the counter, presumably to merge all the certain items that comprise his order into one bag and one happy meal box. Instead, she comes back with a container of chocolate milk and starts bellering in incomprehensible English: "CHOCOLATE MILK. CHOCOLATE MILK! WHO ORDERED CHOCOLATE MILK?!"

After a few minutes, I figure out what she's saying and ask the man if he ordered chocolate milk and help him to understand that Disgruntled, Angry McEmployee is talking to him. He accepts the milk from her, to which she responds in a shout: "Pay attention to your order!" I think if she could have added expletives to that, she would have. New York Grandpa was not the right guy to pull this with though, as he started turning a red color people's faces should never turn, and I thought he might blow his top! Finally, she takes my order. I try to make it simple: a number 2 meal and lemonade. I hand her my card because this is a work expense and wait for the receipt. . . that she doesn't give me. I have to have receipts for expense reports, so I say, "I need a receipt, please." She glares at me, slams the machine, opens up the receipt printing area, slams it again, rips off some paper and shoves it at me. I take it and move to my left for the next person in line. . . only to be glared at again and shouted at to move over the the right and get out of the way. (I'd like to point out that I was standing in the line I originally started out in. . .the one they inexplicably quit serving some 10 minutes before.) But instead, I quietly moved to the right and waited for my order. It came, about the same time as the happy meal for New York Grandpa arrived. I just grabbed it and left with my lukewarm lemonade that I'd watched the girl pour into my cup from another cup sitting on the counter rather than the drink machine. I made a mental note not to drink it.

Finally, I meet Bob at the gate, where are already delayed flight has been delayed even more. We finally got on a plane around 9 p.m. eastern and landed in Nashville around 10:30 p.m. central, 3 hours after our scheduled arrival. Yep, me, Southwest, and BWI are not very good friends at the moment!

by Mandy