I had a very “interesting” Monday this week.

For my normal trek to Calgary, I had booked my flights a bit late and was not able to get my standard 10 AM direct flight, having to book a connection through Denver that left Chicago at the insane hour of 6 AM. I was definitely dreading this all day Sunday up until the time I went to sleep setting the alarm for 3 having scheduled a cab pick up for 3:45. Normally I don’t need to get to the airport 1 1/2 hours before a flight, but the 6 AM Monday time slot has so many business travelers that just about everyone has status and thus there are no short security lines.

Needless to say to anyone who has had to wake for such a flight, I was sleeping quite lightly that night worried that I would sleep through the alarm. So when my cell phone chirped with a text message at 1 AM, it woke me up.  I knew immediately that it had to do with my upcoming flight, and likely was not good news. In fact, my flight from Denver to Calgary had just been cancelled.

Now awake, I hopped on the computer to verify the information and simultaneously dialed the United 1K number to see of there was a better option than the 5:45 PM direct flight on which they had rebooked me. Given that Calgary is a hard market for which to find a flight, recall the reason I was connecting in the first place, I was not surprised that there was nothing earlier, even if I switched carriers.

So I got back online and tried to check in for the changed flight, tired being the operative. I wanted to complete this task given the cancellation just to protect myself from being bumped, not likely given my status, but better safe than sorry. And it took a bit of wrangling by various support folks to get me unchecked in from the Chicago to Denver flight and apparently waiting for system changes to propagate so that I could check in. So about an hour later I was finally able to call my cab company to change that reservation so that I wouldn’t be awoken again as they showed up at the appointed time.

The good side of all of this was that I was able to go back to sleep, and actually slept much better than before the wake up call, getting up at a more normal hour to start a day of working at home. Thus all in all the cancellation was probably good for me.

Yet that is not the end of the story. Given that I had been planning on leaving first thing in the morning I didn’t have a lot of food options at home for lunch so decided to call for delivery. A normally very reliable place messed up my order in two ways sending regular pop instead of diet and a large portion instead of a petite one (and charging me for it). I got a free meal out of that one though, so again I guess that worked out in the end too.

Apparently when I brought the delivery into my condo I tossed my wallet on my coffee table where it remained as I headed off to Calgary. Of course I didn’t realize this until I got to O’Hare and tried to pay for my cab. With not enough time to go home and back, I was very lucky that my driver was very kind and taking my address gave me his so that I could send him a check upon returning to Chicago.

Now I am just surviving the week without credit cards and a driver’s license, which those of you who have been following my blog since Brazil know is not a first for me. At least this time I know I will have everything back on Friday after one more trip through Customs without the advantage of Nexus since the card I am required to carry to take advantage of those privileges is in the wallet.

Sigh,

Wendy

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