Do you really want to fly Air Tran?

Just imagine some juicy curse words! Instead of flying to sunny Florida right now, Julia and I are sitting in the Milwaukee airport waiting until 7 tonight to fly. Admitting my part in all of this, I did not get out of the house on time and did not get to the airport until about 45 minutes before our flight. And then we waited on line. And waited. And waited. After forever, about 10 minutes of not moving at all -- The reason for this was that all of the self-service machines were occupied with passengers who for one reason or another needed individual help and so they couldn't move and so we couldn't move. So we finally make it up to the counter and the computer says I can't check in because the plane has taken off. I then tried to get someone's attention since we still had over a half hour before the plane took off and stood for more time. Finally, one of the guys offers to help me and well, I can't check in because now it is 28 minutes before the flight and the flight is now closed. He does not even try to open the gate for us, doesn't contact this supervisor who closed it. So our only choice is to take the 7 o'clock flight tonight.

And Julia and I have a day in the airport.

Now what is really worrisome is that snow is predicted for later this afternoon, and right now, I am sitting surrounded by windows and it is really foggy. The guy at the desk assures me that we will get out but . . . . And the car and hotel pricelined in my name in Florida cannot be picked up or checked into by David who will be waiting for us at the Fort Lauderdale airport.

Lunch was good. The lady who made my tuna fish sandwish was Chinese and we had a discussion about Julia, JiangXi, Julia's English and her loss of Chinese (I didn't tell her that Julia's Chinese was never very good to begin with), and how long she had been in the US. She gave Juila some free french fries (not this mother's choice and not really to Julia's liking but it was all she had to give, and so was very sweet), and Julia who can seem at times to have an uncanny political sense said sheshe -- thank you in Chinese.

We are now sitting and waiting. Julia watching Totoro and playing with clay, me typing.

I am trying to keep my spirits up, I feel very grumpy. We have not had any luck with AirTran. The first time I flew with them, the flight I was supposed to be on was cancelled and they very quickly switched me to another flight on another airline. I was impressed with this service, however, that seems to be the exception rather than the rule. Since that time, we've travelled AirTran a few times (3-4?) and I have never gotten on the plane that I was scheduled for. The tickets for today's flight were free because of cancellations last September when we were traveling back home from Newark.

And the waiting area is flithy. There is a guy trying to give away flights for signing up for AirTran credit cards, but no one picking up the garbage that litters the carpet

In the great scheme of things, this is no way as bad as the Bolivian airline during which we lost altitude, got to put on the air masks, came down in Panama, got bussed to hotels, and arrived home a day late. But oh so frustrating anyway.

In sum, don't fly AIRTRAN!