It’s 6:40 a.m. and I’m sitting in the last seat of a torpedo-shaped plane which will soon fly to Newark, NJ. I have now been up for more than four hours and just getting to this moment has been an adventure.
I was up at 2:30 a.m., out the door by 3:00 a.m. and arrived at the Toronto Airport at 4:00 a.m., exactly two hours before my scheduled flight to New Orleans by way of Houston. It was at this moment that things started to unravel for me...
My flight is with Continental Airlines and before I left the house, I checked the e-ticket to see if the terminal information was shown. It was not, but I told myself that I’d figure it out when I got to the airport. Mistake number one. There is a large sign at the entrance to the airport which shows all the airlines which fly out of Toronto and their respective terminals. At 80 kph, Continental and Air India look surprisingly alike and I was instantly on the wrong track. I guessed Terminal 1 and found myself a parking spot which was $10 more per day than I had seen on the website. I parked on level 6 and wisely took a picture of the level and area with my BlackBerry camera. I took the elevator down to the terminal level and thought I should use the help phone to see which terminal I should be in. They told me I was supposed to be in Terminal 3 and could walk, take a shuttle or re-park my car at the proper terminal. I was told I wouldn’t be asked to pay when I left this parking garage as I had been there less than 10 minutes.
I got off the elevator at level 6 and tried to find my car. It was as though I had walked into a different parking garage where my area no longer existed, but everyone drove silver Toyota Corollas, none of them mine. I don’t even know how this was possible, but I was feeling some stress.
As I had wandered around lost for a while, they told me I owed $6 when I tried to leave the garage. That seemed like a rip-off, so I asked the young lady if she was serious??? After a phone call to her supervisor, she and Mr. Big decided they could reduce the charge to $3. Resisting the urge to throw the money at her, I left unhappy, in search of Terminal 3.
Instead of finding the terminal, I somehow left the airport property and was driving into nothingness. Seeing a Park and Fly location, I thought I was saved. There were no entrances to be found, so I drove around this parking fortress, my heart rate rising by the second, and eventually found what I believe to be the only way in. It turns out, this was the valet area where I leave my keys with the car and I decided to stay when I was offered the same rate as regular Park and Fly. At some point my brain had stopped working and I temporarily forgot my postal code when talking to the attendant.
The shuttle bus driver was a chatty guy and he told me that people are forever asking him to go to their terminal first, because they’ve planned their time so poorly. He said the only time he agreed was when a guy gave him $50 and I wondered if I was supposed to be bribing him too?
Finally arriving at Terminal 3, I proceeded to the automated check in kiosk as a way of avoiding the line of nine million people in front of me. I was surprised to find out that my checked bag was going to cost me $28, but carried on with about seven pieces of newly printed paper.
I didn’t have a tag on my luggage, so I asked for one at the desk and they gave me some stickers for this purpose. I fully expect the sticker to fall off and my bag to disappear much like the mysterious area of parking level 6.
I walked into the customs area and knew I was in serious trouble. There were another nine million people in line and swear I could hear the theme for the TV show 24 in my ears. I began to sweat and realized that bringing a jacket was just dumb. The line moved quickly and I hoped I might still make my flight. The urge to begin and end every conversation with “I’m going to miss my f*&^ing flight” was almost too much to resist, but I remained calm.
I had made it through customs, but now had to go through security screening. There were- you guessed it- another nine million people in this line. Well, actually it was the very same nine million people I had seen all morning, but everyone was quite a bit more pissed off by this point. I started asking if I could be moved to the front of the line because I was about to miss my f*&^ing flight, but no one allowed it.
When I reached the front of the line and began emptying my pockets, the woman in front of me took off her shoes. She may not have been transporting farm animals in her bag, but her feet had obviously been around them recently and I thought, “Dear God, do I really need that right now??” I put my jacket back on with my passport and all my paperwork in my hand before realizing that it wouldn’t fit through the end of the sleeve. I pulled my arm out and my pieces of paper started to fall out onto the floor. I swung wildly to catch them before they landed and I must have looked like a complete buffoon. If it hadn’t been me, I would have laughed.
My fellow passengers picked up on my plight and told me “You won’t miss your flight-you’ve already checked your bags, they’ll wait for you.”
They were wrong.
I ran like a maniac through the airport, reaching my gate about 30 seconds after they had closed the doors. I had been rebooked on a flight to Newark leaving in 30 minutes.
What a morning.
I was up at 2:30 a.m., out the door by 3:00 a.m. and arrived at the Toronto Airport at 4:00 a.m., exactly two hours before my scheduled flight to New Orleans by way of Houston. It was at this moment that things started to unravel for me...
My flight is with Continental Airlines and before I left the house, I checked the e-ticket to see if the terminal information was shown. It was not, but I told myself that I’d figure it out when I got to the airport. Mistake number one. There is a large sign at the entrance to the airport which shows all the airlines which fly out of Toronto and their respective terminals. At 80 kph, Continental and Air India look surprisingly alike and I was instantly on the wrong track. I guessed Terminal 1 and found myself a parking spot which was $10 more per day than I had seen on the website. I parked on level 6 and wisely took a picture of the level and area with my BlackBerry camera. I took the elevator down to the terminal level and thought I should use the help phone to see which terminal I should be in. They told me I was supposed to be in Terminal 3 and could walk, take a shuttle or re-park my car at the proper terminal. I was told I wouldn’t be asked to pay when I left this parking garage as I had been there less than 10 minutes.
I got off the elevator at level 6 and tried to find my car. It was as though I had walked into a different parking garage where my area no longer existed, but everyone drove silver Toyota Corollas, none of them mine. I don’t even know how this was possible, but I was feeling some stress.
As I had wandered around lost for a while, they told me I owed $6 when I tried to leave the garage. That seemed like a rip-off, so I asked the young lady if she was serious??? After a phone call to her supervisor, she and Mr. Big decided they could reduce the charge to $3. Resisting the urge to throw the money at her, I left unhappy, in search of Terminal 3.
Instead of finding the terminal, I somehow left the airport property and was driving into nothingness. Seeing a Park and Fly location, I thought I was saved. There were no entrances to be found, so I drove around this parking fortress, my heart rate rising by the second, and eventually found what I believe to be the only way in. It turns out, this was the valet area where I leave my keys with the car and I decided to stay when I was offered the same rate as regular Park and Fly. At some point my brain had stopped working and I temporarily forgot my postal code when talking to the attendant.
The shuttle bus driver was a chatty guy and he told me that people are forever asking him to go to their terminal first, because they’ve planned their time so poorly. He said the only time he agreed was when a guy gave him $50 and I wondered if I was supposed to be bribing him too?
Finally arriving at Terminal 3, I proceeded to the automated check in kiosk as a way of avoiding the line of nine million people in front of me. I was surprised to find out that my checked bag was going to cost me $28, but carried on with about seven pieces of newly printed paper.
I didn’t have a tag on my luggage, so I asked for one at the desk and they gave me some stickers for this purpose. I fully expect the sticker to fall off and my bag to disappear much like the mysterious area of parking level 6.
I walked into the customs area and knew I was in serious trouble. There were another nine million people in line and swear I could hear the theme for the TV show 24 in my ears. I began to sweat and realized that bringing a jacket was just dumb. The line moved quickly and I hoped I might still make my flight. The urge to begin and end every conversation with “I’m going to miss my f*&^ing flight” was almost too much to resist, but I remained calm.
I had made it through customs, but now had to go through security screening. There were- you guessed it- another nine million people in this line. Well, actually it was the very same nine million people I had seen all morning, but everyone was quite a bit more pissed off by this point. I started asking if I could be moved to the front of the line because I was about to miss my f*&^ing flight, but no one allowed it.
When I reached the front of the line and began emptying my pockets, the woman in front of me took off her shoes. She may not have been transporting farm animals in her bag, but her feet had obviously been around them recently and I thought, “Dear God, do I really need that right now??” I put my jacket back on with my passport and all my paperwork in my hand before realizing that it wouldn’t fit through the end of the sleeve. I pulled my arm out and my pieces of paper started to fall out onto the floor. I swung wildly to catch them before they landed and I must have looked like a complete buffoon. If it hadn’t been me, I would have laughed.
My fellow passengers picked up on my plight and told me “You won’t miss your flight-you’ve already checked your bags, they’ll wait for you.”
They were wrong.
I ran like a maniac through the airport, reaching my gate about 30 seconds after they had closed the doors. I had been rebooked on a flight to Newark leaving in 30 minutes.
What a morning.
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