Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Every year, my parents always make us watch the movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles around Thanksgiving. It's one of the few actual Thanksgiving movies I know of and though some years I complain about watching it, I really do love it.  I am not a huge movie-quoting person, but I do quote this movie quite a bit.

It's a great movie with a lot of great moments, but the main plot is this (the Wikipedia plot synopsis): "The film stars Steve Martin as Neal Page, a high-strung advertising executive, who meets Del Griffith, played by John Candy, an eternally sunny, overly talkative, well-meaning, but accident-prone shower curtain ring salesman who seems to live in a world governed by a different set of rules. They share a three-day odyssey of misadventures trying to get Neal home to Chicago from New York City in time for Thanksgiving dinner."  I won't ruin the movie for anyone who wants to see it, but the important part of this and the part that relates to what I'm about to share, is that they spend 3 days taking every type of transportation there is just to get home, when they were only supposed to catch a simple flight.

Well, my friends, last weekend, Chuck and I had our own Planes, Trains and Automobiles experience, except I think we were both playing the role of Steve Martin. If only I had the personality to treat the experience the way John Candy does in the movie.

Here is the story of our attempt to get home from Boston.

Friday, August 17
Chuck and I catch a train and then a bus to get to the airport.
About 20 minutes before we're supposed to board,  I post a picture of me and Chuck and say something about how we are the happiest people in the airport. Little did I know...
Flight delay. But the attendant working the booth chooses not to tell us that our flight is delayed and pretends everything is normal.
We board 30 minutes later than the time we were supposed to depart.
Once flying (after sitting on the runway forever) we think maybe we'll still make our connection in DC. But no, there is bad weather so we have to fly a longer route to miss the weather.
We arrive 10 minutes after our connecting flight was scheduled to depart. Since the plane we are on is tiny, we actually get off the plane on steps and are out on the ground outside the airport. And of course it's raining.
Inside, we frantically search for an employee once we see for sure our connecting flight is gone. We find one and Chuck asks him "Sir, can you help us?" to which the man responds "Mmmm I don't think so" and shakes his head no before he even knows what we need help with. Once he sees the look on my face he says he will help us.
Man tells us we missed the only flight to Louisville from DC for the whole day and sends us to Customer Service.
We wait in line FOR.EV.ER.  Lady tries to put us up in a hotel telling us we can leave at 6 am and get home by 1 on Saturday. We say no.
Lady books us on a flight to Indy where we will rent a car and drive 2 hours home to avoid spending the night anywhere but our own beds.
Flight leaves for Indy on time and actually arrives early. We are momentarily happy.
I wait for luggage while Chuck reserves our rental car. No luggage.
Wait in line at baggage claim office FOR.EV.ER.  Man tells us luggage is still in DC and may get to us tomorrow, maybe Sunday. I tell him it needs to get to us tomorrow. He says it won't be that bad if it comes Sunday morning. I say "Actually, what wouldn't be bad is if our luggage was here RIGHT NOW."

After an hour in the baggage claim office I declare to Chuck that I hate all people everywhere.
We finally get in our rental car and drive home with no luggage.
Arrive in Louisville at 2:30 a.m. and go straight to Walgreens to buy toothpaste and contact solution and look forward to wearing the same clothes and underwear the next day that we just wore all day long while traveling.

The flights back to Boston on Sunday the 26th were a little better but ALMOST turned out to be disastrous as well. Upon arriving at the ticket counter to get our boarding passes in Louisville, we were told our tickets for the flight to Newark had somehow been cancelled, but that we were still booked on the flight from Newark to Boston. WHAT? Lucky for us the flight was not full so they were able to re-book us on the same flight.  So that was a relief. That flight left on time but was not too fun considering ice from the outside of the plane was apparently seeping in and melting right on me for the entire hour and 45 minute flight. Not kidding. When we told the flight attending water was dripping on me she said "It's ok" and gave me some paper towels. Also not kidding.

So our flying experiences were not much fun coming home or going back, but the good news is that we made it and we were able to have a good and fun week despite all the screw ups by an airline (coughUnitedcough) I will never fly again and will never recommend to anyone.  And not just because of the flight delays, because those happen to all airlines, but because of the lack of customer service by every single employee we encountered.

Like I said: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Literally.

I'm now going to share a video clip with you from the movie, but I have to warn you: put your headphones in to watch this and make sure no kids or around or anything. Steve Martin drops a lot of F bombs. But it's probably the funniest scene in the movie and it pretty much describes how Chuck and I felt at the airport in Indy when we found out our luggage had not made it. (Please note, we personally did not drop any F bombs or yell at anyone in any airport all week, though sometimes we really felt like it.) Watch this and then go rent the movie so you can see the whole thing. It's a classic. But make sure you have Kleenex handy- it's a tearjerker.