Back in Virginia from Chicago

1:10 AM (of Tuesday, August 20th 2024)

Today is Monday, August 19th 2024 and I had a busy day today and yesterday (Sunday). Whew.

Yesterday (Sunday) was quite busy and stressful in the morning. The day before, we bought 24 hour public transportation tickets for $5 each. My parents woke up at 3:30 AM, and I kept sleeping until around 4:30 AM, after they were done taking a shower and changing clothes and everything.

After getting ready, I checked for any Ubers, and it was $92 to go from our hotel to the airport. That was really expensive, so I proposed another idea, that we take an Uber to the metro, and then take the metro to the airport. There was some back and forth argument, but we went with the metro plan. Basically I decided it and both my parents just went along.

This turned out to be a very stressful idea, as we would barely make it. I have had many flights that I've made very last minute, I think it's a pattern. I still have never missed a flight in my entire life, where the flight had to be rebooked, that I can recall. I have had many close calls where I'd make to boarding by just a few minutes before they closed the boarding. There was a time I was like 5 minutes late to the boarding, and I still made it because the entire flight was delayed.

So the ride to the train station was still like $30. But at least we would save $70 or so, is what I argued. Anyway, it was a carefree ride from the Uber to the metro, but from the metro it was far more stressful. We arrived at the metro at around 5 AM, and our flight was departing at 7 AM. We waited at the metro for like 20 minutes before the train arrived, and then it took another 40 minutes before we'd make it to the airport, and there was a very long commute from the airport's metro station, to the terminal we needed to get to.

So by the time we got to the "check-in" station, it was already 6:16 AM and it was 1 minute too late to check any baggage in. The error message said that we had to check any luggage in 45 minutes before flight departure, so we were literally late by 1 minute. My mom said to just declare no bags to be checked in, so we did that. As we went to the entrance of the security line, the guy said we had to check the bag in because it was too big. Oh no.

Honestly at this point, I think it was reasonable to assume we would miss the flight. The security line was extremely long, and we couldn't check our bags in. Anyway, the guy said to talk to a person in a blue shirt, so I talked to the closest blue shirt person to us, who was this black woman. She helped us tremendously, allowing us to check our bags in late, and then she gave it to this other attendant guy and asked if he knew how to hot load luggage, and he said he did. So after that, and getting the receipt, we tried to get back into the security line, which was so much longer at this point.

The entrance to the security line had that guy checking tickets and packages, so to even enter, you had to have him confirm your ticket first. Since he did that already, and the line to get into the security line was getting super long, I rushed and asked him if he could just let us in since he already let us in earlier. He saw us and recognized us, and let us in. We probably passed by like 20 people who were in line to get into the security line.

Now the security line was so much longer. It would probably honestly take another hour to get through all of this, I'm not joking. The security line was extremely long.

Wahl taught me a trick a few years ago though, when I dropped her off at the airport thinking she would have enough time to go through everything. She texted me the line was extremely long, she wouldn't have enough time to get through it all in time for her flight, and that she might have to rebook and I would have to pick her up again. But she was able to get through everyone by just asking if she could be let through, and they all let her through. I would eventually use this technique again myself, when I also almost missed a flight, arriving and seeing that the line was way too long. It worked that time.

So I employed this technique again today, and we cut hundreds of people, and saved an hour or more of time. It was honestly stressful and ambitious asking to cut in line like that, just passing by so many people, and getting in front of them. We got near the front, and then I asked whomever I got in front of if we could cut him in line, because our flight was taking off in 30 minutes, and the guy said he didn't care. So that saved the day for us. My parents insisted that we kept on cutting in line, but I said this position was fine, and that we already cut hundreds of people.

Prior to cutting in line, my parents asked if we should just ask a security guard if they can let us cut through. I told them that they won't do anything, and it's better to just ask people instead, and it worked. This honestly saved us.

If we had missed the flight, I might've had to buy new tickets for over $1000 as they said I would have to buy all of ours if we missed the flight, we would have had to stay at the airport, we would have to buy airport food (more expensive than outside), and then we would have argued and had lots of problems the whole day until our next flight, whenever that was. It could have been at 5 PM, as the check-in thing did ask if we wanted to rebook for credit and offered a 5 PM flight.

This was extremely stressful. I can't reiterate that enough. I still remember the gate number, it was C29. This was extremely far from where we were, I think it's one of the longest walks from the security line to a gate at this airport. The C gates went up to 31, iirc, and the higher the number the further back it was, so we had to walk extremely far to reach gate C29. Whew. Wow. We really really almost missed boarding. By the time we got in line to board, there was just a handful of people left boarding. We were one of the last ones, but there were still people who got in line behind us, probably either was in the bathroom or just waited nearby until the very last people would get on, so they could sit for longer.

Getting on that flight was so relieving. It was so relieving. We arrived in Virginia again and then took an Uber home, and then rested at home. I ate a lot of calories, and then we went out to Big Lots and Wal-Mart to buy food. While shopping around Wal-Mart, I expressed shock that all of this stuff happened in one day. Oh, and I studied for a while to take a calculus final, and then took it, and I got a 70% or so on it, which is a pretty low score. This was literally the finals for my calculus class. I'm done with that class now, woohoo!

The next day, today (Monday), was far less eventful and strenuous. Nothing happened today. I stayed at home and worked, and that was it. I did my brain training, vegan activism, but basically nothing else. I ate a lot of food today and didn't exercise. I seem to lose track of my goals in life that I want to accomplish, it's weird. I lost weight and worked out every day while in Chicago, but here in Virginia, I was a slouch and was in bed the whole day, and just ate the whole day. I need to get better. Tomorrow (Tuesday) I plan on doing better, working out in the day, eating far less, completing a lot more work.