Last Call

So my baby brother graduated from High School. He graduated from the Wasthington State School for the Deaf. This is three hours from my parents' home. His graduation ended Thursday night around 8:30. Washington decided to show me exactly what not to miss about my homestate when it decided to dump sheets of rain, starting right before the ceremony started and getting worse and worse as the evening wore on. The car ride back to Seattle was horrible. My sister, an anxious individual, driving her new car drove past an accident on the highway and couldn't see three feet in front of her car. This validated her decision to drive 40mph. Quite frankly, I was okay with this. The rain was pretty bad. But the other drivers didn't think so and we almost got in several accidents ourselves when they had to swerve around our practically still vehicle. We got home at 12:30am.

Then my parents got there with the graduate himself who I hadn't seen for more than a half hour during my whole trip. So we talked until 1:30am. Apparantly I'm allergic to dogs and since dog hair covers everything in my parents' house from the potato salad to my pillow, I didn't have a very restful sleep.

My dad woke me up at 4:20am. We left at 4:45 and I walked through the airport doors at 5:05. It took me exactly 6 minutes to check in with Delta airlines and check my bag. I was on my way. Plane loads in 19 minutes, departing in 49. No problem. But then I ran into the security check.

There were six security gates with two scanners each leading to four terminals. One gate was open creating an excrutiatingly long line that brought flashbacks of previous visits to WalMart. (Tangent: Why on earth did they build 40 check-out lines at WalMart when even during the Christmas rush they refuse to open more than 5? Why?) When I had finally made my way near the front of the line (it was well past loading time) they decided to open up another security gate or two. I threw my bags in the little gray bin and walked through the metal detector. BEEP!
"Go back through please. Do you have any metal on you?"
"No. I really don't have anything!"
"Maybe your shoes."
"They're plastic!" I put my shoes on the belt and walked through again. Nothing.
"See?? Sometimes there are metal supports in shoes. That's why we tell you to take off your shoes!"
"Nobody told me to take off my shoes! Besides I thought we were supposed to take off our shoes because that one guy hid..."
"LAST CALL FOR FLIGHT 1181 TO SALT LAKE CITY!"
"Oh, crap!!" If I miss this flight I miss my mandatory meeting completely which means I'll have no idea what to do with my students on Monday which means my grade goes down a letter.
I dropped my argument with the security guard and ran to the belt, grabbed my bags and quickly slipped on my shoes. My plane was in terminal A. The farthest terminal away. I began to run. I don't mean "airport walk." I mean hundred-yard dash RUN! I ran past terminal D on that moving sidewalk thing, past terminal C, through terminal B and into terminal A. A-1, A-2... I was supposed to be at A-18!!
"WE'RE NOW CLOSING THE GATE FOR FLIGHT 1181 TO SALT LAKE CITY!"
"NO!!!! Wait!!!" I ran! People stopped to stare at the little white girl bolting through the airport. I wasn't wearing make-up. My hair wasn't brushed. My eyes were puffy with allergies and lack of sleep. I hadn't eaten or had anything to drink. This paired with running for a half mile made for quite the line-up for vertigo blackout. "Wait!!"
They waited. "Welcome aboard, Miss Hansen."
Gasp for air. "Thanks."