The finale of our trip

Sorry the post last night was so quick, but I was beat. So here’s what happened. We show up (quite early) for our 1:20 delta flight home via cincy. After sitting for an hour or so, dude calls us up and has a “deal” for us. Of course they had oversold the plane. They wanted to put us on a 3:20 UsAir flight that would be direct and would technically get us home earlier than the other flight. After and lot of sighing and trepidation, we agreed.

We had to go pick up our bags back from delta and carry them down to the next terminal to check in at UsAir. This actually went pretty smoothly, but then we had to go back through security and somehow she and I got picked for wandings and pat-downs. Our boarding passes were marked with SSSS in the lower right hand side and this was their indicator. They said it was random, but I bet it has something to do with the re-issuing. Anyway, they went through our carry-ons (which included such dangerous implements as tweezers and nail clippers that they didn’t abscond with). The woman explained the wand thing and how it would beep when it encountered metal “such as zippers.” I told her that there was nothing metalic on my clothing because I was pg and everything I had on stretched. So she did the wand thing and then had to pat me around the middle (I guess to see if I had stuff in my pockets or whatever. She said something borderline creepy like “I guess I’m giving two of you a pat-down, huh?” Uh, yeah… Anyway, meglett and I were deemed to be clean and were sent on our merry way.

As an aside, when we went through the thing, they announced immediately that they needed a female pat-down-doer. I immediately wondered what their protocol is for andro or trans folks. Do they ask who they would be prefer to be inspected by? Do they say, are you a boy or a girl and then go with that? I almost wish I had asked, but I was feeling a bit vulnerable.

So we go to wait for our plane. It was late getting in. Then we had to wait for 6 people to give up their seats. Then we had to be de-iced. Then it started precipitating “ice balls” which apparently wasn’t in the plane’s user’s manual, so we had to wait for the ice balls to become something else to they could know what to do. Since we were added at the last minute, the girl and I were in the last row next to the potty – which I found out had no running water so you couldn’t wash your hands. People kept coming and going and I felt like I could feel the weight of un-washed-hand build-up accumulating on the plane. Then there was the coughing, but that’s beside the point…

Finally, the precipitation must have changed, because we were taken to be de-iced (again) and finally took off. We landed in Columbus around 7:30, which is over 2 hours after when we would have gotten there on the flight with the lay over.

Oh well, we got to Columbus, got in our car, and got home.

I originally thought that Philly hated us, but now I think it is plotting to keep us.

BTW – for those of you who read about how Megan’s phone had deleted all of her pictures, how it wouldn’t ring and part of the screen had gone black? Well, it is fine now. She turned it back on after getting off of the plane and voila!… I have the exact same phone and mine was fine the entire time.