0718 hours.
And so here I stand. Stretching, pacing, jibber-jabbering and just generally killing time before the starting gun/shout/air horn/lighting of a cigarette. (That last one is only for the Barkley Marathons, a race I’m 99.99998% sure I will never do.) Today isn’t a countdown to the start of a marathon though. No, today’s 24 hours before my Southwest flight.
And so I sit and wait. Surfing the internet, rolling emails and Facebook messages, just generally killing time before the clock kicks over to 8:05 AM. There’s not enough time for me to go for my run this morning before I have to check in. And besides, it’s a dreary, drizzily morning and my sore throat has slowly made partial inroads into full on stuffy nose and head-cold. I’m moping and dragging… and having to sit before a screen with Southwest Airline’s app/webpage open to check-in at the first opportunity seems like a fine excuse.
I’m too cheap to pay the $12.50 each way for “Early Bird Check-in” and my A-List status on SWA lapsed last year due to overuse of points/miles/other airlines for my traveling needs. Thus if I want a decent position to stow my bag when boarding, I need to be ready and clicking 24 hours before my flight.
It’s a silly, stupid thing but then so is a lot of life. What blows my mind is that moments after the 24 hour free-for-all I could easily find myself mired in the B group or beyond. I don’t know if that many people are extravagantly spending the $12.50 or if there’s a lot of A-Listers, or if across the Orlando area many a people are staring at their phones/computer screens counting down the seconds to click “Check-In.”
I have a tendency to start clicking a few minutes before the 24 hours as I’m not sure what clock Southwest’s servers are using. We all generally agree on the time but in this instance milliseconds one way or the other mean the difference between A group and B. And in Orlando especially, that gap is huge thanks to Family Boarding occurring BEFORE the B-group. Families. Pffft.
And so I’m used to seeing this message as I refresh and reload the check-in page.
In a marathon, it’d be a false start. For Southwest, it’s just par for the course.
***
It’s 8:05:13 AM. I’m A-56.
Sigh. I’m going for a run.