"Let's just say I'm on my way and I'm in a minivan."

63 mins.
8.5 miles run
~800 miles flown
~200 miles driven

When my alarm went off at the unholy hour of 5:35 this morning, my initial reaction was one of confusion. Why would I possibly be getting up so early on a Friday? Then I remembered, I was meeting my friends Colleen and Kristin for an early run before heading to the airport. Once I got out the door it wasn't too bad, and we actually had a group of about 7-8 people who met up at Inman Middle School and ran through Little Five Points, Inman Park and Candler Park.

After showering and packing up, I took a cab to the airport and arrived about an hour before my 9:50 scheduled flight. Aaand that's when things started going downhill. We boarded about twenty minutes late and seemed poised for an 11:30 or so arrival at DFW--my interim stop--which already made me nervous because my connector was scheduled to leave from Dallas at noon. Things went from bad to worse as we sat on the tarmac for over 30 minutes due to weather in Dallas. During this time, I decided to be my usual proactive self and call AA to see about changing my reservation to a later connection. They put me on the next available flight at 2:20 and I thought I was good to go. Our pilot hauled ass to Dallas, and a quick check on my crackberry revealed that my original connector had also been delayed and I had a chance of making the flight. So, I literally run through the airport to the skylink, rode to another terminal, and ran through the terminal to the gate in hopes of catching the flight before it left. My initial relief upon seeing that the plane was still there quickly turned to frustration when I found out that not only did my original reservation no longer exist (which I pretty much expected anyway), but I wouldn't be able to go standby because there were about 50 other standby passengers whose original flights had been displaced due to weather.

At this point, I weighed my options. A quick check of the flight status info indicated that my 2:20 flight was already being pushed back to a 3:30 departure, and would most likely be delayed further, and I was not jazzed about spending 4+ hours in the DFW airport just to take a 50 minute flight to OKC. My next thought was to take matters into my own hands and get a rental car. Because Jordan is not a normal gas-guzzling American and does not own an automobile, we had already reserved a rental car for the weekend to be picked up in OKC. Or, more specifically, I had reserved the car because he is too young and irresponsible to rent one and cannot be trusted. At this point in the ordeal, I thought it sounded logical to go ahead and rent the car in Dallas and just drive the freaking thing up to Oklahoma. I would end up getting in an hour or two before my flight and would feel much more productive in the process. So I took a bus to the rental car center, where I was informed that a) it would cost me $150 to rent a "one way" car to Oklahoma, and b) all they had available for one ways was a minivan. I think this is the point where I almost started crying. But what options did I have left?? I was already committed to this doomed mission.

Fast forward to twenty minutes later, when Jordan texted "So how did things go with the rental car people?" My response: "Let's just say I'm on my way and I'm in a minivan."

Needless to say, I did eventually arrive in Oklahoma, but in hindsight I probably should've done a few things differently. After all that, Jordan and I still had to drive to the OKC airport to swap out the van for a normal car AND retrieve my luggage. Clearly unaware that I was not in the mood for constructive criticism, Jordan was quick to point out that I should've followed his top two rules. Rule #1: Always wing it. Had I not been my usual responsible self and re-scheduled my connecting flight, I could've retained my seat on the original connector and gotten on in Dallas without a hitch. Rule #2: Never check a bag. And to that, I'll add my own Rule #3: Don't be so impatient. It cost me the equivalent of a new pair of shoes or half a handbag.

Life lessons all over the place today.