Tuesday, April 14, 2009

4-14-09: Interesting Trip Home

I had a bit of an interesting trip home from North Carolina. To start, the flight from Wilmington to Charlotte was delayed by two hours because of a technical glitch in PSA's reservation system (PSA is a partner of US Airways, with whom I booked the flight) which prevented the airplane from taking off. The plane was at the gate the whole time, too. It simply couldn't get the paperwork. But, a couple hours later, we were off. All 12 of us. They even comped us drinks; I had two Heinekens during the 45 minute flight. And I got my homework done while waiting in the terminal.

I then missed my connection in Charlotte, which actually took off from there before my flight from Wilmington took off. No surprise. Fortunately, I was able to squeeze on to a 10:09PM flight back to Hartford. Sat next to a kid who's a freshman at Mitchell College in New London. Poor kid sounds like he really didn't like his experience there thus far.

I arrived at Bradley (BDL) at around Midnight. Hopped on a shuttle to my car, which was nice.

The real stress began when I arrived at my car. No, it hadn't been broken into or anything. But when I went to unlock it with the remote key device, I got no response from the car. Apparently, the battery was running to low that the signal simply didn't reach the car. It didn't even reach while I was IN the car. How I got in was through the key. But, for whatever reason, the car alarm went off. I was able to get in the car, though. But I couldn't start the car; the alarm system had shut that down.

For about 15 minutes I was a bit upset over this ordeal. I called AAA and told them my story. They were great, and said they'd get a guy out there ASAP. My phone's battery almost died, but I was able to turn the car's systems on the charge that, so it wasn't a big deal.

So, I sat there, enraged at my predicament. Then I saw it in the change holder in between the seats: the spare key, with its own remote key device with plenty of battery. I stepped outside of the car, hit "Unlock" and disarmed the alarm. Went in, started the car, and began shouting "I can't fucking believe that just happened! YEEAAAAHHHH!" to myself for about 45 minutes straight. It was glorious. AAA didn't end up being necessary, but I have to thank them for their wonderful service nonetheless. I also picked up a new battery for the remote key device this afternoon.

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