Murphy's Law (of Travel)

Murphy's Law states that anything that can possibly go wrong, does. 

Somewhere out in Bloggerville, someone else has written a similar post, I am sure. But I would like to maintain that Murphy has his own category of laws made expressly for travelers. And each traveler is subjected to his or her own personal travel demon. You know, those things that always seem to happen to you and you alone. Never, ever, anyone else. For example, you might be that traveler who, no matter which line you choose, whether it's at the airport or the border, you will wait twice as long as the person in the same spot as you, two lines over. There is no rhyme or reason to it either-sometimes it's the passenger with the monstrous amount of baggage, or the passenger who apparently thought they could pass smoothly from one border to the other with proper documentation. It doesn't matter-it will happen on whatever day you are taking your journey.

My own personal is....drum roll rhythm please....Murphy's Law of Connecting Flights.  This states in the event of a connecting flight, the first flight will be late in order to ensure that  I can and will be forced to either rebook and/or languish in a transit lounge. Or, I will create a sheer spectacle of myself as I sprint through the airport to find the gate from which the next connecting flight is departing. In that case, this gate will always be, at minimum, two terminals away and boarding will already have begun.  My history speaks for itself-from the debaucle at JFK a few months ago to the time I was forced to spend a night in an hourly establishment (shudder) while trapped in Singapore transit hell.

Case in point: Last weekend, I traipsed off to Florida to for some fun in the sun and female bonding with a best friend from college.  From DC, I had a connection in Charlotte and as per my usual routine, my flight arrived late. The next flight was supposed to be boarding and we were still taxiing. To compound matters, my carry-on had to be tagged on the jetway (along with most of the other passenger's) and stowed underneath. So there would be no frantic sprint out of the plane to my connection. Instead, I would wait, along with the masses, for the grandmotherly gate agent to be handed the bags from the tarmac and  place them  two at a time on the jetway. Mine was dead last. Of course. Upon sighting it, I snatched it as if it was a long-lost child and began my dash. Except I am not exactly in shape for sprinting and neither were my sequined slip-ons purchased on a whim while in Thailand. Cute? Yes. Functional? Not so much. I was winded within 20 seconds and considering my options when I spied the man driving the little golf-cart apparatus. I usually scoff at the notion of being transported to a gate, and poke fun of the passengers who have caught a ride. On this day though, I realized I was going to have to choose between my pride, and getting to Tampa on time. He already had a few passengers and was moving along at pretty good clip, but I seized the window of opportunity as he was whizzing by me to politely ask beseech him to take me wherever he was going.  He stopped and in a flash, I was on the cart and whirling through three different terminals before arriving at my gate. THREE. There is no way I would have made it in my sequined slip-ons doing the Olympic dash.


Unceremoniously, I lunge off the car and panic-stricken, confirm with the nearest passenger that the plane was indeed headed to Tampa. And, as it turned out, the flight was slighly delayed for some unknown reason and boarding had only just begun. All that drama, panic, and cursing of Murphy/my luck/the airlines for virtually nothing.


Of course.


What seems to always happen to you when you travel?


Enjoy a few pictures of the sunny weekend. As you can see, the eventful 10 minutes in Charlotte was the only stressor of the weekend!