Terrible Admission

I flew to Chicago on Tuesday. I flew United from Dulles to O'Hare, and my flight took off at 5:15 PM Eastern Standard Time. I left my house in Williamsburg, Virginia in my car at 1:32 PM EST. It takes 2.5 hours at my post-haste rate to get from my house in Williamsburg to my parent's house outside DC. My parents had my suitcases and it takes about an hour to go through security at Dulles Airport.

Heh heh heh.....
....in conclusion, I was cutting it insanely close.

And I must admit I liked it better that way.

Some things cannot be sped up, neither can they really be spiced up. Security lines are an example. You can try to read a paperback or play with your phone or listen to music, but really your best option is to stand, as ready as possible, and make up stories about the people around you or daydream about the advertisements blaring from everyside. Waiting in line to board your plane or take your seat are other examples from this category, except that they are to me worse, because you go from having taken a nice seat at your gate and settled in with your book or game, to being called up to sit in queue for another 15 minutes needlessly. I would rather keep my seat and be the last on the plane than spend 7 whole minutes waiting in a tiny airplane aisle, awkwardly crammed between my carry-on luggage, while 3 rather slow people and 2 families with children get themselves sorted out. They can have their time! I will take mine sitting comfortably in this plastic-gate seat, immersed in Narnia, thank you very much!

On Tuesday I found another way around this little time period. That was to cut it so close, that I was the last person on the plane and my time just before boarding was spend sprinting through the airport from the security line. A little bit of exercise, a little jolt of adrenaline, a little lovely graciousness from the people before me in the metal detector line-up who all let me skip ahead. It was so effecient! It was suspenseful and exciting! I got here just fine and skipped most of the parts of flying that I hate!

This experiece was so good, and yet it is terrible: I have even less experiential reason to leave margin for my next flight than before!