The horror that is the summer travel season of 2007 has finally claimed it’s first victim from PatandMeg.com. As many of you know, I travel on a nearly weekly basis, and have indulged in most of the major airlines. I’ve had some nasty experiences before, but sit right back and you’ll hear a tale of what should have been a three-hour tour, and takes the cake as, what Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons would call “worst. trip. ever.”

It all started on a sunny Dallas Thursday. I was booked to fly US Air, my current airline of “choice” since they have a near-monopoly on flights to and from Charlotte. I was a little disoriented since I was flying up to Erie, PA. rather than flying home to Charlotte, since I had to move some stuff out of my Grandfather’s house. Rushing to catch my flight I had accidentally left my toiletries in my bag. I usually leave them at my client office, since according to the Hitler Youth TSA only a terrorist would travel with more than 3.0oz. of liquids, so to avoid TSA harassment I decided to check my bag. As an aside, plastic toiletries do not show up on the TSA’s X-Ray machines, so I generally ignore the 3oz rule and just leave them in my bag as my own private act of civil disobedience. I also recommend putting your boarding pass through the X-Ray machine as that really agitates them.

Unfortunately I had a Costco-size metal can of shaving cream in my bag so I thought checking the bag would be the easiest bet. Mistake #1.

We pushed back from the gate on time, and I closed my eyes, thinking all was well. A few slots from takeoff and the pilot came on in his best Captain America voice to announce that there was rain at the end of the runway. He provided no other information, and I remained confused during our one hour runway sit until I saw what was clearly an omen of things to come. It was literally beautiful and sunny on one side of the runway, and grey and storming on the other. Very strange. Mistake #2 was not pulling the emergency exit door, running for my life and joining a Buddhist sect that believes air travel is a tool of the devil as soon as I witnessed that strange weather pattern.

Once airborne I checked my watch, smug in my realization that I had booked a “US Air f-up proof” 2:30 hour connection. With the delay in Dallas, I still had well over an hour to grab a bite in Philly and make it to the looser terminal (more about that later). No one likes vanity, and I was about to be sorely punished for my sins.

If you fly too much, you get a sixth sense about various flight patterns, plane noises and altitude changes. My spidey sense was tingling was we neared Philly. Something was amiss. Captain America left his next announcement for the first mate; I believe his name may have been Gilligan. He announced that there was a minor backup in Philly, and that the plane was “dangerously low on fuel” and was being rerouted to Baltimore to refuel. The bastards had run out of gas.

Some more bobbing and weaving and we landed at Baltimore and parked on the tarmac to await the fuel truck, which came after about 20 minutes. I marveled while contemplating the darkening sky that after five minutes of apparently doing nothing, the fuel truck was speeding away. As my brain searched for answers, the intercom clicked on once again with more good news. The fuel truck that arrived did not have enough gas to fill up the plane, so they needed to fill up the truck and send it back.

When the truck returned after another 20 minutes I made mistake #3. Rather than squaring my shoulder and doing a Terry Tate to shove the stewardess out of my way, duck through the open door, douse myself in Jet-A and self-immolating, I merely sat there and looked at my watch. There’s still a chance.

The stewardess spared us the lecture on how to fasten your seat belt, as the natives were getting restless at this point. Passengers were commiserating over missed connections to Europe and other exotic locations while I still held out hope for Erie. We finally landed at 9:55PM, with my connection departing at… 9:55PM.

I nearly strangled the attendant who was supposed to help us with missed connections. He called the gate at the loser terminal but to no avail. The one time I needed a late flight, US Air left right on time. Beaten but not yet ready to submit, I accepted a rebooking for the first flight in the morning and asked about a hotel voucher. The guy looked at me as if I had asked if I could take his wife out for a night on the town, then tickled his computer and said his information indicated we had been delayed due to that infamous airline excuse for when they screw up and don’t want to pay for it: “weather.”

This elicited a roar from the crowd that was forming behind me, and after some furious typing he generated a voucher and scrawled in the number for the Quality Inn. Finally beaten into submission, I backed away to let my comrades in arms fight out their connections.

I have a travel policy that has severed me well during my years of business travel, that may seem snooty to my readers but has been gleaned from hard-won experience. While I’m more liberal when travelling on vacation, when traveling on business I refuse to stay anywhere with “INN” in the name of the establishment. That rules out the likes of Holiday Inn (I am not on holiday, and if I were, I would avoid an Inn if possible), and I know from experience that there is little that is Quality about the Quality Inn. Nonetheless, I was willing to bend the rules to end the day with any kind of bed.

I went to baggage claim to attempt to retrieve my bag. The people said that was entirely impossible. Rather than attempting to beat the employees into submission with a rather large car seat they were carelessly kicking around, I accepted a tiny bag filled with single serving China-made toothpaste and other toiletries in exchange for entrusting them with my bag, and I dialed the number for the “Quality” Inn.

The gentleman that answered explained that they were “off airport,” but did in fact have a shuttle service. It was on its way to the hotel, but would be back for another airport pickup in “about 45 minutes.” I was a bit frazzled at this point and thought I might have misunderstood, and perhaps he had said 4-5 minutes. Querying for clarification, I discovered “off airport” met “right across the bridge” in New Jersey. The QI was “off airport” like Michael Jackson was “just a little” odd.

Making some small restitution for my previous litany of mistakes, I marched over to the decidedly on airport (as in walking distance) Marriott, and negotiated the $269 rate down to a more palatable $149. The gent took pity on my and provided a “stranded traveller” shirt that had some cute remark about an unplanned visit to Philly on the back. I am writing the hotel to have it changed to “Yes, my limp is due to US Air bending me over and…” you get the picture.

Broken and beaten, I adjourned to the bar for a lacklustre cheeseburger, half-decent Manhattan and a few beers. Properly nourished with Vitamins M and B, I called it a night. My final mistake of the day was thinking that tomorrow would be a much better day…

Part II follows our hero as the schleps through the loser terminal, gets his Texas on, sweats to the oldies and makes some new friends in Guatemala. Stay tuned…