"Toxic Waste" In Chicago....

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This has been one of those trips..... It started fine. The first day was short, I ended up in San Francisco where my husband met me. We went down to Fisherman's Wharf, etc. We walked about 10 miles and the weather was fantastic! The next day, he flew home and I continued on my now hellish trip. Of course I blame all of it on Chicago, as I now do most of the negative things in my life. (including broken nails and splinters) Our first plane had mechanical issues and shouldn't have had passengers put on it until the issue was solved, but they boarded them anyway. So they sat, staring at me for an hour at the gate in San Francisco. That flight went smooth after that. My next plane had no air conditioning on the ground....with 50 people in a plane.....it was 95 degrees within about 10 minutes. Then we found out that they had to offload a LOT of fuel so that we could take all the people and all the bags. (the plane was supposed to go somewhere really far away....then they gave it to us!!) THEN.....we waited for more bags. I had thought the passengers on the last flight were mad. I was wrong. Of course once you even think about flying in or out of Chicago you are delayed at least an hour, so we are late to boot......then they were even angrier. Of course after I bribed a ramp worker to bring me a case of water, which I passed out with a charming smile. Things started to get better......until the bag loader broke. I only have so much charm and smile.

Finally when we got to Chicago they parked us out in the west 40, the passengers left, I quickly grabbed the trash and cleaned up as best I could.....I figured I can eat and go to the bathroom tomorrow, right? I "helped" the surly commisary guy by emptying the trash and setting it on the top step so he could just grab it when he came back. The wind was howling and no one wants to be out there. (obviously from their moods....) Suddenly an agent steps through the door, OVER the trash mind you, and informs me that the passengers are here to board and there's trash in the way. (duh, I put it there...) I think maybe she could move it as she steps over it and walks back down the steps to call over some back-up to confer on what to do about the "trash incident." Now there are 2 agents huddled together pointing at the trash bag as if contains toxic waste. (the passengers are still standing in the howling wind because the little conference is happening right at the bottom of the steps) The same agent as before comes part way up the steps and tells me again that I have trash in the door, but this time she glares at it and points, I guess because I didn't understand last time. Finally I grabbed the trash and "helped" her back down the stairs and out of the way of the passengers. Then I ran back up the stairs, put on my smile and invited my passengers to board. Thank God they have agents in Chicago!

I know I need to learn to change my attitude about Chicago, we are all a team when it comes to getting flights boarded on time, etc. But seriously it just gets worse every time I'm there!

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