Toronto - day 4

Today was my last day in Toronto. The meetings were scheduled to go until five o’clock so I booked my flight out at seven. Well, as luck would have it, we finished up by noon. They had lunch provided so I ate and then Tim and I hurried into the airport to see if we could get on an earlier flight. Once again, as luck would have it, I can’t. So here I am sitting in the airport with a five-hour wait ahead of me. I really don’t think I can read for that long no matter how good the book is. We cleared customs here in Toronto so when I land in Minneapolis I can just head to my next flight, which will be nice. I had an interesting experience at the security screening. I don’t know what they were doing but normally if you set off the alarm on the x-ray machine they take you off to the side and wand you. I didn’t see if the guy set off the alarm or not but when I got to the point that I could walk through the x-ray, the guard was wanding the guy right in front of the x-ray machine so we all had to wait. I am dead serious when I tell you that we all stood there for a full three minutes waiting for her to wand this guy. She was searching every little detail too. I even commented to the lady next to me (we had a huge line at this point) that I really hoped that I didn’t set off the alarm. Well guess what, I didn’t set off the alarm but she searched me anyway. I think she as in training but I’m not really sure. She spent a full three minutes on me too. She found a tiny piece of aluminum foil in one of my pockets that was from a Rolaids wrapper, I had to undo my belt and show her the back side of my belt buckle, but the scariest thing was when the zipper on my pants beeped. She actually called the male gaurd from the next machine over and he stuck his hand down my pants to make sure I didn't have a bomb there. I was really getting worried. These Canadians know how to scare a guy away. So that brings me up to where I am now. If everything goes without incident I will be home before midnight. My plane lands at 11:00.

So I’m sitting in Toronto thinking all is well and I notice on the board that my flight was delay by 15 min. No problem, I can handle 15 minutes, then it is delayed by half an hour. I’m now starting to worry because my connection in Minneapolis is only a little over an hour. Then the flight is delayed by more than an hour. I check with the gate agent and they tell not to sweat it, there are thunderstorms in Minneapolis and my connecting flight is also late. To make a long story short, my flight was supposed to leave at 7:00 pm and it left after 9:00. We are then told that the reason we waited on the ground is so that we wouldn’t have to wait in the air. Right! We ended up circling over some place called Eau Claire for another half hour. So I land in Minneapolis (pretty green around the gills because it was a rough ride in) and I ask the guy at the gate if my connection to San Diego has left yet. He tells me they are still there and tells me where the gate is. It is in a different terminal so it was a long hike. Did the guy mention that it left in 20 minutes? Nope. Even still, I hustled my buns over to the other terminal and just because I had that nagging voice in the back of my mind I didn’t stop for a bio-break even though my bladder was nigh unto bursting. I come up to the gate and I can see that my plane in still at the gate but there isn’t a soul in the waiting area. They were all boarded. I called out to the gate agent and I said, “I’m sure glad you waited for me”, He takes one look at me and yells down the ramp, “Don’t close the gate, we have a runner here!” I hustle down the ramp and the planes door is shut and the agent is banging on the window to get them to open it again. I’m really glad they did. When I boarded the plane there was a guy in my seat and he didn’t look at all thrilled when I made him move. It was a long flight and I wasn’t about to be cramped against the wall. I like my isle seat. I stowed my luggage and sat down and the next thing I knew we were almost to San Diego. I landed at 1:30 AM, which for my body was 4:30 AM. I slept in this morning.