south of the loop

I Swear Like a Southsider!

I made my reservations for Austin a while back, weeks before the tighter restrictions on carry-on baggage. I’d planned just to take a carry-on–I’m traditionally a heavy packer (I like options), but I was sure I could manage to lighten up for a long weekend. Since I’m flying on frequent flyer miles, my flight options were somewhat limited, and I ended up on a 6:55am flight Thursday morning. All the better to practice packing light! I could just hop on the bus and race through the terminal and flop into my seat at the last minute. No problem.

This all rested on the assumption–the stupid, unreasonable assumption–that I was flying out of Midway, which is a 45-minute-to-an-hour bus ride from my house. I double-checked my flight plans today to make sure everything is on track. By this point, I’d pretty much given up on the carry-on idea, and resigned myself to getting there early enough to check baggage. Better to just take a book and wallet and avoid the carry-on chaos altogether.

But I’m actually flying out of O’Hare. Fucking O’Hare. The airport at which I’ve never had a good experience, at which nobody has ever had a good experience. And for a 6:55am flight. Working backwards: arrive O’Hare at 5am; get on shuttle and leave Hyde Park at 4am; get up at o’dark thirty. For all of this I have only one word. Motherfucker.

Posted 13 September 2006

Filed under: chicago, life in general by admin2

No Comments

  1. Comment by jaq on 13 September 2006 1:17 pm

    dude.
    i’ve flown 4 times
    since the new regulations
    it’s not that bad!
    i know i haven’t flown from o’hare,
    but lax isn’t known for its easiness, either.
    just go easy on the product
    & you’ll be fine.
    why won’t you trust me?
    i mean,
    have you been watching foxnews?

  2. Comment by lmb on 13 September 2006 1:38 pm

    It’s not that I don’t want to trust you, I just fear lines & lines & lines, and given my propensity to a) run late, and b) just miss transportation (see: daily sprint to Metra), I don’t want to push my luck. Do not fear: the day I trust FOXNews over you is the day my mom becomes a card-carrying Democrat.

    And I just found out that the Hyde Park-O’Hare shuttle does not run before 5:10am. Fuck.

  3. Comment by tim on 14 September 2006 6:48 am

    I’d like to point out that LB swears like an Englishwoman, something for which i take full responsibility.

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