O'Hare Dash

As I promised around Christmas, here is the much anticipated story (actually I think only Kay is waiting for it) of my holiday party. This is long and I apologize in advance. I will post something more interesting (i.e. pictures) tomorrow.

I flew out Sunday night (Dec. 16th) and spent Monday at a professionalism course to become a credentialed Actuary. Monday night the rest of the Denver crew flew out and I met up with them for dinner. Tuesday we had meetings all day in the basement auditorium of the Chase tower. The party that night was up a floor in the dining hall. It was pretty nice, finger foods and mingling, but it was over by 8. Luckily we had an after party at the Blue Frog karaoke bar. It was typical karaoke until Deng took the mic and brought down the house with "Welcome to the Jungle". I also had to sing "Sweet Caroline" due to losing a bet on the World Series. Wednesday we had more meetings and then a couple of hours of downtime before catching our flight, which was at 5:45. Most of the Denver office had left right after the meetings to try and get on the 4:45 flight, including my boss, who I had also driven to the airport and was taking home on Wednesday night. I did some work and planned on leaving the office at 4. A 45 minute train ride would leave me ample time to get to the gate, since I was already checked in. Needless to say, I just missed a train as I got to the station, so I didn't leave until 4:15. Now I was starting to get a little nervous that I was cutting it close, yet I still felt pretty confident. So I got off the train and made a long brisk walk (with my suitcase, a laptop bag, a coat, and my nice warm scarf) up to the terminal. I got to the security line a little after 5, and was greeted by a very long line. I spent the next 10 to 15 minutes fretting over the prospect of leaving my boss high and dry (since at that time I knew that he didn't make the 4:45 flight, but not being sure about anyone else). I did have time to notice which of the security checkpoints were going faster, so I jumped in that line as soon as I got past the boarding pass check guy. I got through security at about 5:25, and I was feeling ok, but knew that it would be close, since I still had to go over the the C concourse. I threw on my untied shoes and had to walk very quickly through the underground walkway. At the end of the walkway both of the escalators were pretty crowded, so I decided to jog up the stairs. At this point I was very grateful that I used every single square inch in my suitcase, and that I was still wearing my very warm scarf. Luckily the gate was right there and as I rounded the corner the doors were still open, and there was a long line of people off to the side. The gate agent asked me if I had a boarding pass on the flight, I said yes, but apparently I didn't have a seat assignment. So she told me to take the second place in line, behind a girl, and in front of a guy. Finally I had a break to tie my shoes and wipe the sweat from my brow. I talked to the girl next to me and she said that they had overbooked the flight. So we both had tickets, but no seats. Meanwhile, the guy next to me was asking the gate lady why he was number one in line but now number 3 (he was just on standby). They finally said that the first 6 people in line could now get on the plane. We walked down the jetway and stopped just outside the plane. The flight attendant came out and told the girl and I to take the first two seats (he made it sound like they were together) so we walked on and there were two seats off to the side at the back of business class. Another flight attendant told us to sit there, so we started to unload our stuff. We weren't there for more than 20 seconds when another flight attendant told us that we couldn't sit there and that we had to find something back in the main cabin. At this point I didn't care too much, at least I was on the flight, but then Mr. #3 in line asked if he could sit there, and even offered to pay for them. I finally found another seat back in economy, and was about to sit down when the girl came by and told me that they told us to go back up front. So, in the end, we settled down into business class just as we pushed back from the gate. I got to stretch out, enjoy a complimentary dinner, drinks and hob-nob with the haves.

Moral of the story: It pays to be early, but just getting there in the nick of time gets you free upgrades to business class.