Living life by the minute

# of planes missed, lifetime to date: 3 (or is it 4?)
# of trains missed, lifetime to date: too many to count
# of meetings/appointments I've been late for: WAY too many to count

Basically, I'd rather be 2 minutes late than 5 minutes early. Yesterday, though, that philosophy cost me 5 1/2 hours in the airport and an extra day of PTO.

My flight to Alabama was at 1:11. I could have left at 11am, but thought I could push it to 11:30. After all, security lines, especially in Terminal 2, shouldn't be too crazy during the middle of the day - WRONG! It was 11:40 by the time I headed out to drive to my secret parking spot at the Irving Park Blue Line. When I parked, I briefly thought, "I should probably take a cab from here. Okay, if there's a cab coming, I will take it." But, the only cab I saw just kept driving on by. So, off to the "L"...at least that will save me 15 bucks! At this time, it's 12:04. Yes, it's times like these that I am living life by the minute...watching the clock every second, thinking about what my Plan B is. I think, "If the train hasn't come by 12:20, I'll definitely go back down and get a cab." But, the train came at 12:09 and we get to the O'Hare stop at 12:33 (exactly a 24 minute train ride...mental note for next time).

When I get to the terminal, the main security line is the longest I've ever seen it. So, I proceed to the "secret" security line at the far end of the Terminal 2. No luck: Security lady says it's closed. But, it was only closed in the "grocery store lane" sense...people were still going through the line, they had just turned off the light to any new customers. This is where I made my key mistake...I should have begged and pleaded for them to let me in to that security line. Alas, I headed over to the next "secret" security line in Terminal 1. Immediately upon entering that security area, which had a long line that was only getting longer by the minute, I texted my mom (at 12:39, 22 minutes before boarding cut-off): "May have pushed it a little too close today...security line is LONG."

During the very long 21 minutes in the security line, others and I observed a bunch of (ie, 8) TSA employees standing around, not appearing to do much of anything. Had I not been afraid of going to airport jail for taking a picture of the security area, I would have  a picture of these folks to post for you. Yes, these agents may may have been on a legitimate break or had reached the end of their shift, but it's not good for customer perception to be standing around while we waited for service in a long line that only had ONE lane open.

Once I get up to the one guy who's checking boarding passes and ID's, it's exactly 1pm and I ask if I can sneak in to the "Employee and Military" line, which he kindly allows. But, I'm in Terminal 1 at this point and need to be in Terminal 2, so by the time I get to my gate, it's 1:06 and I ask "Is it too late to make the flight to Huntsville?" The gate agent responds, "Yes, it is. Are you Jennifer Morrow?" Why, yes, yes I am THE Jennifer Morrow. Who just arrived 5 1/2 hours early for her 6:54pm flight =)