Oy, Canada!

Well, all youse guys are way smarter than I am, because I am the one who booked that ticket and I looked at my itinerary a lot and never noticed that I had booked my return for March 28 instead of Feb. 28.

I got to the airport around 9 for my 11 am flight. I tried checking in at the U.S. area since I was going to Seattle, but I wasn't in the computer. I asked the lady and she said that since I was going through Vancouver, I needed to check-in at the Western Canada area. I went there and checked in using one of those screens. I put in my passport and everything and got my boarding pass. When I got up to the baggage drop-off, I showed the boarding pass to the lady. It said "Carole" instead of my real name. That's weird, she said. She looked up the boarding pass and said, "Are you going to Honolulu?" and I said, no, Seattle. She said, you're not in the computer. I said, maybe it's under my other last name. No, it wasn't. I was starting to panic because I really wanted to go home. I pulled out my itinerary so she could look me up via the booking code or whatever. She looked at my itin and she's the one who noticed that I was booked for March 28. I started to cry a little bit (how to explain to Pete and Sally! how to explain to my boss that I had to charge another night at the hotel! or the cost to change the ticket!). She said, it will be okay! Come right back to me when you know more, you don't have to wait in line. And she sent me to talk to this other lady at the "purchase ticket" counter.

I got done crying while I walked to the new lady. I said to her, "I did the stupidest thing." And she said, "You booked for March instead of February." Indeed! I felt a little less stupid since apparently I'm not the only idiot out there.

Anyway all flights were completely booked the whole day. She looked around on her computer for about 15 minutes and finally she said, I found a flight coming from Halifax that's delayed, and there are passengers who are going to miss their connection to Vancouver. So you can take one of their spots.

So she put me on standby. I went back to the baggage lady and I said, "remember me?" and the lady next door to her said, "What did she do to you! She sent you off crying!" and I said, "I have recovered now," and we all had a good laugh as I relayed the good news about flying standby with no charge to change, no less!

So the nice lady took my suitcase and I went off to the gate to wait. I ate a sausage, egg & cheese biscuit from Tim Horton's which was like the most amazing thing to have at such a stressful moment.

Anyhoo I got on the flight thanks to the late plane from Halifax. When I got to Vancouver I had to go through customs and the guy was like, where's your form? and I was like, fricken frack I don't have a form. So he gave me a form and I filled it out and I was really annoyed. I had to get my checked suitcase and go through security before I could board the Seattle flight. I waited a while and no bag. I asked the baggage guy and he looked up my bag and said, it got booked to Vancouver, not through to Seattle. This meant my bag was floating around on the carousel for Canadians. So he called some dude and asked the dude to bring me my bag. In the meantime the clock was ticking closer and closer to departure time. And I knew if I missed the flight that all the flights to Seattle the rest of the day were totally booked. I sat there for about 20 minutes and finally my bag arrived. I went through security and ran to my gate and of course I was wrong about the time the flight left so I hadn't needed to run and I sat there waiting for like 30 minutes.

Then we flew to Seattle and I got off the plane and went to Qdoba at Pacific Marketplace and ate a big plate of beans and chicken.

Then I went home! I got really REALLY lucky.