I need to find a way to skip the first day of vacations. That first day, often consisting of nothing but transportation, can be overwhelming. This one certainly felt that way. The day started like any other day – meaning that I woke up way too early. So I was ready to go, well before I needed to go. I dropped off my dog (Bear) with friends. He always has a good time there, but he also doesn’t like being without me. I tried to explain how long I would be gone, and why he couldn’t come with me, but Bear didn’t seem to understand. He just understood that I was leaving him. So I headed to the airport feeling a little sad that I had made Bear sad.

My flight was on Spirit Airlines, which I have never flown before. From what I had heard about this airline, and based on how cheap the ticket was, I was prepared for the worst. What I experienced was not the worst. But it wasn’t great, either. Let’s back up a step first: what does the phrase “check in” mean to you? Because to me, you check in when you arrive somewhere, to let them know you are “in” the facility. So this concept of checking in via the web, a full day before your flight, just doesn’t make sense to me. BUT, Spirit charges you an extra ten bucks if you wait until you arrive, so I went ahead and checked in online the day before. When I did so, I was given a choice: print the boarding pass on my own printer, or have the boarding pass emailed to me. I chose both. Neither worked, but at least it acknowledged the fact that I had checked in, so no ten dollar fee for me. When I arrived at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, I was able to print my boarding pass at a Spirit Airlines kiosk with no problems. So now…time to contend with the TSA.

I normally don’t mind going through the airport security checkpoints. That’s not to say that I actually find them to be effective or necessary. The fact is, it’s a screening process, and I’m a Process Guy. But there’s one thing that bothers me about it: without fail, every time I take off my shoes for a TSA security checkpoint, at least one shoelace ends up in a knot that I can’t untie. EVERY time! And it’s the ONLY time! It never happens when I take ’em off at home, just when I’m trying to get through the lines at a TSA checkpoint. So I’m trying to get this knot undone while also trying to empty my pockets, when I notice there’s something heavy and unexpected in one of my coat pockets. Oh. Yeah. I put Bear’s leash in my coat pocket when I dropped him off. We’re talking about a five-foot length of heavy, metal chain. As I placed it in the bin, I felt sure they’d see this chain as a potential weapon. I was about to initiate a conversation with the nearest TSA agent, to try to explain why I would bring such a thing onto an aircraft, when I noticed she was already looking over the items in my bin. She pushed the bin into the X-ray machine without saying a thing…so I didn’t say a thing. The agent screening the X-rays also didn’t say a thing…so neither did I.

Back to Spirit Airlines. The plane for my flight was an Airbus A320, but these were definitely not the type of seats I’m used to seeing on Airbussessess. These seats do not recline at all, have an ineffective system of bungee cords in place of the seat back pocket, and have comically tiny tray tables. Despite the inability to recline, I managed to sleep off and on through the whole flight. Beverages are another thing that cost extra on Spirit, and I was a little afraid of putting an open container of liquid onto that ridiculous tray table, so I went without. By the time we landed in Orlando, my throat was feeling pretty dry and it was getting close to time for my next round of meds. But I pushed on through baggage claim and the car rental counter, thinking I’d stop and pick up a drink at the first convenience store I encountered when I hit the road. This was a bad idea.

Almost as soon as I left the airport, I was on a tollway. And it seemed like every exit from this tollway was either a freeway or another tollway – there seemed to be nowhere to just pull off and try to find something to drink. Then I hit the wall of unmoving traffic. And I mean unmoving. This was not “stop and go” traffic, it was seriously NOT MOVING. By the time it started moving again and I found a convenience store, my meds were overdue by nearly two hours – which is pretty significant seeing as how I normally take these meds every three hours. So between feeling fairly crappy from lack o’ meds and being agitated by Florida drivers, by the time I reached my hotel, I was more than ready to call it a day. For my next trip, I’m using a teleporter.