I hate LAX
Jun. 30th, 2009 10:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threeplusfireWhile I loved the beautiful, cool, sunny Seattle weekend getting home last night was such a relief. We spent about twelve hours in airports and planes. LAX reaffirmed its status and the most loathsome domestic airport ever, and certainly one of the ugliest. (Seriously, this is an international airport in L.A.? Newark looks better than this. Even the Atlanta airport doesn't smell like day old socks and piss.) The crazy construction of the terminals requires one to take shuttle buses around the tarmac, occasionally stopping for planes and randomly switching buses. Then one waits indefinitely while the bus drivers gossip, despite the fact that you could be missing your plane RIGHT NOW.
But I should back up - In Seattle, our plane was late arriving. Then the vast number of children made early boarding slower than molasses. Halfway through boarding there was some kind of security incident in the airport, causing flashing orange lights to go off everywhere. This also meant they had to stop boarding. Lovely. At least we were in the terminal and not trapped on a plane with large numbers of screaming, crying children. Our take off was late, and combined with the ridiculous shuttles we came close to missing out connection despite having planned for a layover of well over an hour. The final catastrophe came at the gate when the attendant suddenly decided she didn't want to let me on the plane, because she could not understand why I was holding my boarding pass for this flight as well as the previous flight.
I try to always be nice to people in service jobs, but I was about to start yelling.
Our flight home was distinctly uncomfortable. I spent most of it in one never-ending panic attack. Some dim corner of my brain knew it was just panic and feverently hoped I wouldn't embarass myself by screaming on the plane. The rest of my brain was convinced I was dying. It was the combination of hideously uncomfortable seating, dehydration, the near constant screaming of small children, and the two older women behind me. One of them answered her damned cell phone as we were beginning to take off and it took all my self control not to turn around and yank it out of her hand. They spent a large portion of their flight talking in gruesome detail about dentistry, brain injuries and other medical things.
Towards the end of the flight, the cabin pressure seemed to be fluctuating. I felt like I was underwater, about to pass out. I had several minutes of feeling as if I was going to die. It was miserable.
At home, the temperature after midnight was 88 degrees. My joints ached so badly I cried. I feel a little better this morning, but probably mostly because it is raining. I think I will go back to bed now.
But I should back up - In Seattle, our plane was late arriving. Then the vast number of children made early boarding slower than molasses. Halfway through boarding there was some kind of security incident in the airport, causing flashing orange lights to go off everywhere. This also meant they had to stop boarding. Lovely. At least we were in the terminal and not trapped on a plane with large numbers of screaming, crying children. Our take off was late, and combined with the ridiculous shuttles we came close to missing out connection despite having planned for a layover of well over an hour. The final catastrophe came at the gate when the attendant suddenly decided she didn't want to let me on the plane, because she could not understand why I was holding my boarding pass for this flight as well as the previous flight.
I try to always be nice to people in service jobs, but I was about to start yelling.
Our flight home was distinctly uncomfortable. I spent most of it in one never-ending panic attack. Some dim corner of my brain knew it was just panic and feverently hoped I wouldn't embarass myself by screaming on the plane. The rest of my brain was convinced I was dying. It was the combination of hideously uncomfortable seating, dehydration, the near constant screaming of small children, and the two older women behind me. One of them answered her damned cell phone as we were beginning to take off and it took all my self control not to turn around and yank it out of her hand. They spent a large portion of their flight talking in gruesome detail about dentistry, brain injuries and other medical things.
Towards the end of the flight, the cabin pressure seemed to be fluctuating. I felt like I was underwater, about to pass out. I had several minutes of feeling as if I was going to die. It was miserable.
At home, the temperature after midnight was 88 degrees. My joints ached so badly I cried. I feel a little better this morning, but probably mostly because it is raining. I think I will go back to bed now.
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-30 05:22 pm (UTC)Sleep is very good.
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Date: 2009-06-30 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-30 05:26 pm (UTC)Bad airport, bad!
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Date: 2009-06-30 08:15 pm (UTC)So uh, when are you moving AWAY from there? ;)
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Date: 2009-07-01 01:08 am (UTC)I think I have accepted I am cursed to stay in this damn county now that Dave is employed. I avoid downtown as much as humanly possible and stick to the suburbs. I don't care how COOL things are in the city. I'd have to DRIVE to get there.