Take a Deep Breath - Frankfurt Edition

Tucked inside the H terminal at Miami International Airport, we were first in line at the Lufthansa check-in, right behind the tiny Japanese woman and slightly larger Korean woman who were on a ski trip.  We really, really want to upgrade to business class. An upgrade would be an exciting and extravagant beginning of our new life adventure.
We were also anxious because we had loads of luggage and lots of ukeleles to transport.  

We waited for about an hour and forty-five minutes in line, drinking shots of Cuban coffee while we chatted up the skiers.

 

Eventually we were waved in to the promised land of Ticketing. The handsome Attendant at check-in informed H that I did not have a premium economy seat and therefore was ineligible for an upgrade. H prickled up at this, in his very Wassery way, which is not a pleasant experience when it is directed at you. Frantically, we searched our emails for confirmation of purchase to prove the gate attendant wrong. H was the winner when he found proof of purchase. An upgrade ensued with anticipated glory of lay down seats. 

 

Looking at a 3 floor apt here!

 Gaining possession and inspecting our boarding tickets, I inquired why I didn’t have my normal PreCheck. The attendant responded I was not in the Trusted Travelers Program. I may not be trustworthy but I do pay for the title and I have the card to prove it, or at least a picture of it on Dropbox. I provide him with my ID numbers, which he stated didn’t work. I look up my copy of my card on Dropbox to verify the numbers, which doesn’t help because there is only a picture of the front. The numbers are on the back, of course. I only have a copy of the front.  However, the image of the card strengthened my case that I was Precheck worthy. The Attendant indicated that he would get us thru Precheck personally and printed new tickets for me. As we had upgraded, it made us very important customers and we were escorted to Precheck.

H passed thru the TSA checkpoint with flying colors. When TSA scanned my ticket and I was not allowed to pass because as the TSA agent said, “this ticket isn’t for this airport.” Wrong airport entirely. At this point, I had never had the new ticket in my hand. Mr. Lufthansa was rightly embarrassed and ran off to his kiosk to correct the problem while I waited beside TSA, like the troublemaker I am.

All sorted out, we proceed to dump our computer gear, etc to be scanned. In front of us was a family of 5 with 3 small kids in tow, who had to send several items back thru the scanner. There was an increase of the chaos and carnage to avoid from this family, but finally we were in the international terminal. Woot.

The sign said it was a 15 -minute walk to the gate and my Fitbit indicated It was around 1200 steps. We made ourselves comfortable, got provisions, went to the bathroom and settled in to wait the 2 hours before the flight. Digging around for something to read, H hands me a computer. 

 

“What’s this?” I inquire

“It’s your computer. I told you I picked it up for you at TSA” said the gallant husband beside me.

“No, it isn’t. My computer’s in my bag. This is not even the same model.”

The abject horror in both of our eyes when we realize he had picked up the harried families computer.

H ran it back to TSA and I scanned the crowd for the family of 5. We’ll never know if they got it back in time or not.