The On-Time Machine

There was a shipping company several years that promised themselves as the "On-Time Machine". I can not remember for the life of me if it was FedEx, UPS or the Post Service and after several Googles (Has that really become a word in our vernacular?) I am unable to recall the frame of reference. So I decided just to write about it instead of spending more and more time searching a seemingly copious amount of websites.

I was in Chicago last week on business. I was staying at the historical Drake Hotel in downtown. No I was not there for Job 3:14. It was for a boring training seminar filled with boring internal auditors and IT nerds (of which I am. Sometimes I think I am about 30 seconds from a pocket protector). The week started and ended about the same way. My flight on The Airline was delay a short time... 1 hour... and so that didn't get me into O'Hare until very late. They are renovating and the place looks like a sanctuary for the homeless.

A complete side bar. Why in the world do people stop in the middle of an airport walk way and look around? Could you imagine what the street traffic would be like if we all acted the same way. You would think that there was some hypnotic beam that comes on and people are drawn to stop dead in their tracks in the middle of a wide open walk way and look at it. Hopefully the beam will never command people to wet themselves. That could get messy. My main request would be for people to just pull over to the side before they act like a Pavlovian dog after the bell has rang. I digress. Back to the subject at hand.

So I get to the Drake and having received an email earlier that day informing me that training was in the same hotel went dog tired to bed with the assumption I could sleep late the next morning (by late I mean 6:30). I wake up after one of the most invasive acts ever known to man, the wake up call, informs me that it is indeed time to move my butt out of bed. I perform the usual routine shower, shave and dress in typical man time (2 minutes 30 seconds) and go to check email. There is this phenomenon in my industry (consulting) that doesn't count training as "Real Work". So I read through the emails and see if there is any "Real Work" to be done before I go to my training class which I guess is now considered "Play Time". I finish with the email about 7:30 and casually stroll down to the level where they have a breakfast buffet set up and partake of a Parfait and some luke warm cranberry juice. I look at my watch and realize that it is about 5 minutes until class starts and decide I need to figure out the location of the training room. I nonchalantly saunter to the desk to inquire as to the location of my conference room. The lady behind the desk blankly stares at me as though I have just asked her the meaning of life. You see my conference room (CR 22004) was actually in The Company's Chicago office approximately 20 blocks away. So I break the land speed record up stairs to my room grab my coat (that I only break out during the winter when I travel north), and then out of the hotel as fast as possible to grab a cab. During my trip to the office, one of my managers calls me and asks where I am. I do my best to feign ignorance (of the fact that I am late), and tell him I will be there in 5 minutes.

Fast forward to Friday...

I am usually pretty casual about getting to the airport. I am there so much every article of clothing actually knows its place in my suitcase. I have the travel time from my front door to The Airport in my home town to the nanosecond. When I am in another city I like to play by the "Two Hour Rule". The "Two Hour Rule" states that if you are within a reasonable distance of the airport in whatever city you are in, you can grab a cab, get to the airport, run your belongings through the nebulous "X-ray" machine, enjoy a full body cavity search by a 6'6'', 350 pound, guy named Brutus (The Special Treatment as I call it when I see it happening to some poor smuck), and make it to the gate to board the plane in time. This is a good rule. If you can, I highly recommend you live by it. Now if you are a 2 hour drive from the airport, don't be stupid. Do the math. Plan accordingly.

Friday morning I had an 8:00 flight out of Chicago. Something in my brain didn't connect that 5:30 (which really means 5:40 for me) is not early enough time to pull myself from a groggy slumber, shower, shave (skipped that, as my Travel Size Better half (future) kindly noted to me upon seeing me), dress, place my belongings back into their rightful places and make it to a cab. Seriously if you could have witnessed this event, you would have been proud. I was a machine! I looked like I was running the sprint-relay by myself after taking Nyquil, Benadryl, and two Tylenol PM Extra strength. With all of the confusion, I am sure there is sock in my collection at home now running solo because his brother has been lost in battle and never to be seen again. A P.O.W. of the trip to Chicago (I will keep you posted on this). I made it. I was down stairs at 6:05 a.m. to find a taxi that took American Express (In the middle of my melee, I actually had the foresight to call the Concierge and inform them of my need). So I get into the taxi and ask "You take AMEX?" Which must have translated to you "You drive cab?" in his native language because he smiled and said "Yeah, maaunn" (not sure he was Jamaican, but he was not originally "From here").

So he gets me to the airport in plenty of time. It comes time for the payment and I politely ask again, "You take AMEX? Right?" which once he realized I was not telling a funny joke, he deduced that I wanted to pay with a credit card. The fare was 36.05 and I had 36 even in cash. So I said "I have this much cash or you can swipe my AMEX between your butt cheeks see if that works"(I don't normally recommend this to anyone, but desperate times you know). The stark realization that not only is he not going to get a tip, but he will be required to eat an entire 5 cents of the fare, causes him to magically discover a manual credit card device that catches an imprint of the card on a piece of carbon paper (The little guy on my AMEX card actually stopped perspiring once the threat of cabby butt crack was no longer imminent). I pay the guy $40.05 (which I am sure once I was out of the cab would be altered in some way to $4005.00) and head into the terminal. All in all it was a momentary scare, but nothing tragic.

My Travel Size Better Half (future) would never allow this to happen. You know there are those people we joke about being late to their own funeral. She is NOT one of them. She arrives early to EVERYTHING! She arrives early to parties (She is actually not this bad anymore. The Travel Size one's Father says I have had a calming effect on his Travel Size daughter. People actually began to count her in the group of people to help set up with out telling her. It was just a fact she'd be there.). She arrives early for early voting. If you tell her something starts at 7:00 p.m., she will consider 6:55 p.m. to be late. There was a time when I was concerned. Did I need to get two Palm Pilots? One that was on the normal time scale and one that was 5 minutes fast. You see what use to be something that bothered me is now something that I find endearing. It makes me laugh. In fact it was my motivation for this entire entry. I am by no means always late, but I can't hold a candle to her (She has actually relaxed a lot. We have both made changes and it has been great!). It will no doubt make for a good combination as we grow together and no doubt create opportunities for many more humorous yarns about our differences on this subject. She being the original "On Time Machine" and me... well not so much.