One crappy day!

So my trip back from LA was the nightmare I hear so many people talk about. To start my day, the shuttle driver, who is from LA, went the wrong way after he picked me up and had to turn around, bad sign. We made it to the airport and the lady in front of me at security complained about just about everything in our 30 minute wait. She found a little bag of pills that was obviously lost from a bag that was being scanned and insisted the security lady figure out whose they were, out of the thousands that had been through that morning. Seemed a bit of a challenge that Mrs. Security wasn't about to attempt, which pissed off Mrs. Optimistic. How she figured the owner could be located, I don't know. My plane that was to take me to St. Louis, was 2 1/2 hours late from Dallas into LAX, which meant I would miss my connection to Des Moines. I tried to get someone who "worked" for American airlines to help me figure out if I could get home. They have a little area that says "Customer Service," which I mistakenly believed would be a good place to get some service. I waited in front of the desk for about 5 minutes until an American employee told me that this little booth wasn't manned and I would be waiting until a certain place froze over. They suggested I ask an employee at a gate to help, which I tried next. They told me I needed to ask a gate person at the gate I would be leaving from, but since that was still 4 hours away, there wasn't anyone at the gate. I decided to call the 800 number, who proceeded to tell me that they could book me on the morning flight from LA to DSM if I wanted. I told him that I could make the flight to St. Louis that day and wasn't going to put my trip in their hands in hopes that they could complete the same trip I missed today, tomorrow. I wanted to fly to St. Louis and see what I could do from there. They booked me on the morning flight from STL to DSM, so I had that lined up if I needed it. They tried to get me on another airline and different cities, no go. I hung up and called our corporate travel agent and she looked for me. She found me a flight on Northwest that left at noon that would get me home, but I would have to either go without my suitcase or try to get it, leave the terminal, find the Northwest terminal, go through security again and get to my gate in 15 minutes. Didn't even entertain that as a possibility. I had her rent me a car, which I could drive from STL to DSM in about 6 hours. You might ask why I would subject myself to such a trip, well, I had been out of the office for 4 days and Friday was my only day in the office for 2 more weeks, since I leave for NC on Monday. I landed in STL, requested my bag, got it pretty quickly actually, rented my car and headed for home. The route I took home was flooded out just days earlier. I know this because I drove down a highway that had a sandbag levee that came right up to the solid yellow line on my right, making my lane quite narrow. I drove through Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, home of my inlaws, and was tempted to stop and sleep, but was feeling pretty good, so I figured I could make it home. Just north of Mt. Pleasant, I almost got to see my father-in-law, but not by choice. He drives an ambulance and a large deer jumped in front of me, causing me to stomp the brakes, which caused the SUV I was driving to fishtail a little. I released the brake and turned to go behind the deer, which took me a bit off the road, but remembered that you should go to where the deer is, staying on the road. Leaving the road not only is more dangerous for you, but if you wreck without hitting the deer, you have no evidence there was a deer. They say it is better to hit the deer than crash your car in the ditch, even though that deer is going to mess your car up. I kept it on the road and missed her ass by about a foot. That woke me up pretty good, had me ready for the 2 1/2 hours left in the drive. I made it home at 3am, got some sleep and was able to get to work well before I would have if I had waited for the morning flight that was supposed to get me home at 11am. I've always been very lucky with my travel, when I've had flights canceled, I've always been able to get other flights to get me home on the same day. I guess the thing that sticks out to me the most, was the lack of help I received at the airport. There didn't seem to be anyone that would help. The money saving cost cuts have put the people that are there in a bind should something go wrong. Of all of the people that I tried to get help from, the lady at the STL airport and the people in the customer service area, even thought they we're telling me they could help, we're the nicest and most helpful. The rest of them need to find jobs in the garbage industry, so they don't have to work directly with people. Now we are packing and getting ready for our trip to the beach. The boys are REALLY excited and I'm getting a little excited myself. The trip out should be fun, I'll post when and where I can.