Bad Start

I had only flown six times in my life: three trips to Mexico and back. I had never before flown by myself. Neither had I ever switched airlines during a layover before. These few things made me moderately nervous on August 2nd when I stepped into Manchester Airport. Things seemed to go smoothly as I got my boarding pass and got through security hassle free. I was quite early, so I wandered around, getting something to eat at McDonald's and getting some gum for too much money. The plane left slightly late, due to someone's baggage mixup. "No worries" I thought. I had only an hour layover in Chicago, but there shouldn't be an issue being a few minutes late. That flight went fine, with an only slightly annoying kid and his polite mother beside me. Oh yes, and an angry woman near me swearing at the flight attendants for not giving her a beer. We landed to a wet Chicago, and the lightning caused the ground crews to stay indoors, leaving our plane one hundred feet from our gate. Knowing that the entire airport was in the same situation as our plane, I wasn't too concerned with making my next flight, even though we sat there for an hour... as long as my layover was supposed to be. When we finally got off, to my dismay and concern there was no display for my next flight, or any flight from that airline. I didn't know if I had missed it or what, but I wasn't sure what to do about it. Without information of the flight, I had no idea where there gate was either. So I wasn't sure who to talk to. I decided to go to the front desk area, knowing that would be an easy place to find who I wanted. Oops. Now I was outside of the security, and being late at night there was no one at the desk. After talking around, I found that there should be someone from the airline at the baggage claim. Finding it and talking to the woman there, she informed me that the flight had not left yet, but she couldn't get me a boarding pass because her printer was down. So she left to the front desk and came back with a handwritten boarding pass. I finally got back in and found out where the gate was that I needed to get to. However, it showed that the flight was now boarding, and that the gate was a good distance away. I ran... then my shoes started to fall off.... then I ran in my socks. Then I got to the gate and eventually boarded the plane. I seated myself next to a fellow who was complaining and swearing over his cell phone about the late flight and the weather and such. Then after taking off, drinking some awful smelling beverage. Then jamming to some music, thus jostling my seat. He general made the trip much more miserable than it should have been. But it was over soon enough with my sister Grace and my Dad to meet me in Dallas, only two hours late. It'd be nice to end the story happier like saying that I found five dollars on my way out, but my week improved so much after that night that I don't really need to lie to cheer you up.