Interviews: A Comedy of Errors

[ekmf27050]

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Leaning against a wall that had a wet paint sign left my black suit ruined by white paint... Thankfully after the interview portion of the day!

did you have to buy a new suit??

 

[Hebe11]

did you have to buy a new suit??

Yes 🙁 with expedited shipping for the next interview.

 

[ekmf27050]

Yes 🙁 with expedited shipping for the next interview.

Oh my I'm so sorry. It took me a lot of online shopping to find a suit that fits and I have defended it very fiercely from hotel irons and airline baggage handlers.

 

[ekmf27050]

Re: my interview #4 fiasco, they ended up being my first acceptance! Apparently being moderately winded during the interview didn't ruin my chances

 

[ekmf27050]

Interview 8: Despite being warned about the entry/exits to the MMI rooms, tripped twice- once exiting a room, and one flying headfirst into the room and seeing my life flash before my eyes- started off that MMI saying "ohMYgod that's the second time I've tripped in 5 minutes COOL"

 

[DBC03]

So I stayed with a student host at my last interview and went for a jog the morning before the interview. Her roommate left early and locked the deadbolt. I was stranded outside for 15-20 minutes trying to come up with a plan involving climbing the pillars to get on the roof and slide to the windows that might or might not be open. Thankfully the host woke up and saved me, but it started the morning with a little adrenaline.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[Kingsmen2018]

I made the error of flying my ass all the way to West Virginia, then drove 2 hours to go to an interview just to get an automatic OOS waitlist

 

[ekmf27050]

So I stayed with a student host at my last interview and went for a jog the morning before the interview. Her roommate left early and locked the deadbolt. I was stranded outside for 15-20 minutes trying to come up with a plan involving climbing the pillars to get on the roof and slide to the windows that might or might not be open. Thankfully the host woke up and saved me, but it started the morning with a little adrenaline.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

Much respect for the pre-interview exercise!
I can only imagine the panic-- glad you were saved from some spiderman style breaking and entering!

 

[LizzyM]

I remember getting so lost in the hospital during my interview. I ended up in something like the ICU (you had to have swipe access to enter and exit). So me being a dummy, I followed a resident through these heavily fortified double doors... and remained stuck on the other side for a solid 10 mins. I kept banging on those doors for someone to let me out. You can just imagine a panicking pre-med desparately yelling to be let out. Ahh.. at that point, I was looking to escape through the 6th floor window to make it to my interview. Luckily some admin walked by and let me out. I asked for directions every 10 steps after that incident.

Be glad that it wasn't a locked psych ward!! You'd be lucky to get out.

"Poor guy is suffering from delusions. He thinks he's a pre-med who has an interview. He goes around asking for directions to the admissions office. Very sad case. Whatever you do, don't open the door for him."

 

[ekmf27050]

Also @ interview #8: compulsively took fruit snacks from every snack basket -- I'll blame low blood sugar from interview stress, but I just found and ate another bag as I prepare my stuff for interview #9...

Maybe this interview will be completely benign with no embarrassing occurrences? Odds are NOT in my favor

 

[TelemarketingEnigma]

My interview today was a wild ride worthy of this thread.

• Was planning to take an early bus to the interview city Saturday morning to do some sight seeing and visit friends. On my way home Friday night, however, I realized I had forgotten to pick up my dry cleaning that day, including my suit!! Dry cleaner didn’t open til 8, bus was leaving at 7:30... thankfully the original ticket was super cheap and I found another bus ticket for a few hours later for similarly cheap, so I just rebooked and grabbed my suit first thing. Not a big deal.
• Ran behind in getting ready this morning, in my hurry managed to burn my arm while steaming some wrinkles out of my suit. I now have a nice patch of steam-induced stripes.
• Panicked because I couldn’t find the gift card I’d brought as a small thank you for my student host. It was in my wallet the whole time.
• After the interview, taking the subway with some fellow interviewees, an announcement is made that the line we’re on will be terminating early because of a track issue. After a period of much confusion, we end up having to leave the station we stop at and walk 15 minutes to one on a different line.
• Grab dinner with a friend before catching my bus home. Dinner runs a bit over, so I call a Lyft to get me to take me to the bus stop. I watch on the map as the driver just sits there, then starts driving in the wrong direction, then stops again. Never shows up. Eventually I just give up and call another car. Make it to the bus with five minutes to spare.
• Finally make it on the bus, realize my headphones are in my luggage that is stored underneath. I am now enjoying a very silent 4 hour ride home.

Despite all of this, the actual interview day went pretty well! Thankfully I’m not easily ruffled by this kind of stuff, so while this series of events was certainly not my most shining moment, I didn’t let it get to me and ended up having a lot of fun.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

My interview today was a wild ride worthy of this thread.

• Was planning to take an early bus to the interview city Saturday morning to do some sight seeing and visit friends. On my way home Friday night, however, I realized I had forgotten to pick up my dry cleaning that day, including my suit!! Dry cleaner didn’t open til 8, bus was leaving at 7:30... thankfully the original ticket was super cheap and I found another bus ticket for a few hours later for similarly cheap, so I just rebooked and grabbed my suit first thing. Not a big deal.
• Ran behind in getting ready this morning, in my hurry managed to burn my arm while steaming some wrinkles out of my suit. I now have a nice patch of steam-induced stripes.
• Panicked because I couldn’t find the gift card I’d brought as a small thank you for my student host. It was in my wallet the whole time.
• After the interview, taking the subway with some fellow interviewees, an announcement is made that the line we’re on will be terminating early because of a track issue. After a period of much confusion, we end up having to leave the station we stop at and walk 15 minutes to one on a different line.
• Grab dinner with a friend before catching my bus home. Dinner runs a bit over, so I call a Lyft to get me to take me to the bus stop. I watch on the map as the driver just sits there, then starts driving in the wrong direction, then stops again. Never shows up. Eventually I just give up and call another car. Make it to the bus with five minutes to spare.
• Finally make it on the bus, realize my headphones are in my luggage that is stored underneath. I am now enjoying a very silent 4 hour ride home.

Despite all of this, the actual interview day went pretty well! Thankfully I’m not easily ruffled by this kind of stuff, so while this series of events was certainly not my most shining moment, I didn’t let it get to me and ended up having a lot of fun.

Sounds like normal travel stuff that all happened at once. Definitely adds up to a frustrating trip. Hopefully it didn't bleed into your interview.

 

[SpoiledMilk]

In poker terms, you have two pairs or perhaps a generous straight with the broken chair. Very entertaining.

I got a three of a kind, so here's mine:

Int #1: Drove 13 hours (750+ miles) one way to interview. On way back, another 750+ miles, 2 seconds from hitting a deer going 65mph at 2-3AM in stretch of highway with miles of no cell reception and no lights. Got a parking ticket from parking security when going to my car after the day was done, after getting reassurance from the security guard at 7:30 AM that it was ok to park there.

Int #2: Got up at 3AM to drive to the school which was 2 hours drive away. On the way, took a wrong turn and ended up 45 minutes late for check-in. Very awkward walking in on the Dean of Admissions half-way into their orientation presentation and profusely apologizing.

Int #3: After finishing interview with a GI, walked out of the room to fellow applicants asking how it went. Being ignorant of how my voice carried, stated jokingly that the interviewer was a GI and that I feel like I just received a colonoscopy. Fellow applicants and I laughed, but a representative of the school who gave up a presentation earlier overheard. They found it funny also, but I don't know whether my joke was appropriate under the circumstances.

Results:

Int #1-->Accepted
Int #2-->Accepted
Int #3-->Accepted

Moral:

So you never know...

 

[STcmOCSD]

There’s a building that this school keeps locked at all times. They said if you have an interview in there you’ll need to push the button so security can buzz you in. No button to be found on any of the doors. Walked all around the building trying to get in, at this point sweating profusely because it’s August in TX. Finally flagged down a student to let me in the building as they were exiting.

Interviewer: “I was wondering if you’d ever show up.”

 

[ctaim]

I was at an interview in August, during which they separated the students into two groups and placed them in separate rooms.
Then, they asked us to get up and follow an instructor down the hallway, each of the doors had an interviewer name and a student name. We were picked out of the line one-by-one as we passed.
Eventually, it came down to me and another student. I asked him if he thought it felt like we were being led to our final arena, like in The Hunger Games.
Apparently, part of adcom was still right behind me. Luckily they got a kick out of it and laughed.

 

[willow84]

At my MMI they gave us stickers with our name & picture on them to give to each interviewer. "Don't forget to bring your stickers from room to room!" Left mine in my first room... had to awkwardly have the admissions person go back in and grab them for me.

 

[HomeSkool]

Can we broaden this out to Step 2 CS debacles? Cuz I've got a good one...

 

[TelemarketingEnigma]

Sounds like normal travel stuff that all happened at once. Definitely adds up to a frustrating trip. Hopefully it didn't bleed into your interview.

Exactly - any one of these things by itself is just kind of annoying, but in the end it was almost hilarious how many minor travel issues I managed to rack up

 

[SpoiledMilk]

Can we broaden this out to Step 2 CS debacles? Cuz I've got a good one...

Can't speak for everyone, but I'd love to hear about it. Please share!

 

[lol_new_user]

Interview Fail 1:
Saw a really good friend at an interview and got super excited! Didn't realize how loud I actually was, or how much the others could hear me. So I kind of said in high pitch "Oh my god it's you etc. etc. etc." . Dean of Admissions (who would later on interview me) came out and was like "Omg you scared me I thought something was wrong".

When I realized she was my interviewer, I was flustered and went straight into panic mode. I went in with her, and she stated she was dean of admissions. I wanted to know more about her background, but that came out of my mouth as "What have you completed, a Bachelor's and Master's". and right after I said it i was like OMG I AM SO DUMB OF COURSE SHE HAS A MASTERS OR A PHD CUZ SHE"S DEAN OF ADMISSIONS.

We ended up having a really good interview and a chat, and overall I felt that she liked me. Hope that makes up for my blunders.

Interview Fail 2:
Ended up telling one interviewer, "Idk, people say I'm caring, but I feel like caring for people is more common sense....". No reaction from interviewer. Don't know how that went.

 

[Welshman]

Results:

Int #1-->Accepted
Int #2-->Accepted
Int #3-->Accepted

Moral:

So you never know...

That was a hell of a wrong turn if it made you that late! Good job with the interview though!

 

[SpoiledMilk]

That was a hell of a wrong turn if it made you that late! Good job with the interview though!

Thanks! The secretary from admissions called me as I was driving around sweating up a storm to ask if I was ok and if I was coming. I apologized to her and joked that it was a hell of a first impression.

Ultimately, the Dean of Admissions was a great guy and he was very understanding of me arriving late. I apologized to him profusely after his presentation and he didn't seem to hold it against me...LOL

 

[ekmf27050]

My interview today was a wild ride worthy of this thread.

• Was planning to take an early bus to the interview city Saturday morning to do some sight seeing and visit friends. On my way home Friday night, however, I realized I had forgotten to pick up my dry cleaning that day, including my suit!! Dry cleaner didn’t open til 8, bus was leaving at 7:30... thankfully the original ticket was super cheap and I found another bus ticket for a few hours later for similarly cheap, so I just rebooked and grabbed my suit first thing. Not a big deal.
• Ran behind in getting ready this morning, in my hurry managed to burn my arm while steaming some wrinkles out of my suit. I now have a nice patch of steam-induced stripes.
• Panicked because I couldn’t find the gift card I’d brought as a small thank you for my student host. It was in my wallet the whole time.
• After the interview, taking the subway with some fellow interviewees, an announcement is made that the line we’re on will be terminating early because of a track issue. After a period of much confusion, we end up having to leave the station we stop at and walk 15 minutes to one on a different line.
• Grab dinner with a friend before catching my bus home. Dinner runs a bit over, so I call a Lyft to get me to take me to the bus stop. I watch on the map as the driver just sits there, then starts driving in the wrong direction, then stops again. Never shows up. Eventually I just give up and call another car. Make it to the bus with five minutes to spare.
• Finally make it on the bus, realize my headphones are in my luggage that is stored underneath. I am now enjoying a very silent 4 hour ride home.

Despite all of this, the actual interview day went pretty well! Thankfully I’m not easily ruffled by this kind of stuff, so while this series of events was certainly not my most shining moment, I didn’t let it get to me and ended up having a lot of fun.

Honestly, the no headphones thing would be a deal breaker for me...

But you know what they say! Terrible interview luck turns into acceptances! ****

(****I just made that up and have absolutely no proof to support it)

 

[ekmf27050]

Can we broaden this out to Step 2 CS debacles? Cuz I've got a good one...

The fact that you used the word "debacle" sounds very promising, please share!

 

[HomeSkool]

OK, didn't mean to leave you hanging. Busy day.

I took Step 2 CS in September 2008 -- a bit earlier than many of my classmates because of the military match. My school was within an hour flight of Chicago, so that's the site I chose, and my flight was scheduled for a 5 pm departure the evening prior to the exam. I expected that would put me on the ground around 6:30 (taxi time, doncha know) and I expected to be cozily tucked into my room by 8.

The city's light rail system ran about a quarter mile from my house, so I walked to the train stop with my carry-on and got myself to the airport. I encountered no significant slowdowns en route to the airport, and, after allowing TSA to get to third base with me, I got to my departure gate and boarded the plane. Nestled into the seat that would be my home for the next 90 minutes, I pulled out my First Aid book to brush up. The flight attendants made their announcements about locking the cabin door, and I thought we'd be off shortly.

And then we sat...and sat...and sat...

Half an hour after our scheduled departure time, the captain came over the PA system to explain things. "Folks, we've hit a bit of a snag. While the first mate was doing his last pre-flight walk around the plane, he noticed feathers in one of the engines. So we've called the mechanic to come have a look. Probably the engine is fine, but we need to be sure." Yes. Yes, you do need to be sure.

So we kept waiting...and waiting...

Another hour passed. The flight crew provided a drink service. Then they started offering to put interested parties in hotels for the night. I flagged down a flight attendant. "Um...I live in town, so I don't need a hotel, but will this plane get off the ground tonight?" "We believe so, sir. The captain will let us know as soon as the mechanic gets here." "We're an hour and a half past departure time and the mechanic hasn't even shown up yet?" "I'm terribly sorry, sir." "Not your fault. I'm just stressed over an exam I have tomorrow."

The wait continued until 7 o'clock. At that point, the captain walked down the aisle shaking hands and offering personal apologies. When he got to me, I asked him what to do. "You see, I have a medical board exam in Chicago at 8 am tomorrow. If I go home and start driving right now, I can get there by 4 am. I don't want to do that, but I really can't just no-show." He was very sympathetic. "I understand why you're anxious. We'll get you to Chicago tonight. You don't need to do anything dangerous."

Around 8, we finally got another update from the flight crew: "Folks, the mechanic got here, took a look, and said he needed to go get his tools. He should be back by 8:30." WTF?! I thought. He's a mechanic and he didn't think he might need his tools?! Can you imagine how that mentality would work in other professions?
- Educator: "I came to give your lecture today, but I need to go back to my office and put together some slides first."
- Soldier: "Sir, I'm ready to face the enemy. Just let me go back to my barracks and get my rifle."
- Lebron: "Let's play some ball! I gotta go home and get my shoes first, though."
- Trump: "I'm ready to sound insane but I just can't remember my Twitter password."

At 9 o'clock -- four hours after our scheduled departure -- we finally got off the ground. It wasn't until we got up to 20,000 feet that the pilot could finally see my stress level hanging over Lake Michigan like a horrible cloud of med school anxiety. The flight was uneventful, and by 10:30 I was getting a cab to my hotel. By 11:15 I was checked in and getting ready for bed. And then I noticed that I was starting to feel URI symptoms. Sweet heavens above, I thought, don't let me get sick. Not now. With that thought, I went to bed.

The next morning, I awoke at 6 am. My URI symptoms were worse than when I'd gone to sleep, but I felt a little better after showering. That's the best I felt all day.

As I went through the exam, my illness steadily increased. By the morning break, my throat was sore. By lunch, my sinuses were completely full. By the afternoon break, I had body aches. By the end of the exam, I had chills. My tenth patient encounter featured a patient who started by berating me for his ED wait time; I mustered every shred of professionalism I had and resisted the urge to point out that I was clearly sicker than him. I actually asked the twelfth patient to pass me the box of tissues sitting next to her.

When the exam ended, I felt like a train had hit me. I dragged my carcass onto an airport shuttle, got myself to my gate (TSA gave me very little hassle; they clearly wanted nothing to do with me), and died a little inside when I realized that my flight home wasn't for another four hours. The airline representative put me on standby for a flight that was departing little over an hour later. I took a seat and called my wife, who was home with our two children, aged 1 and 3. "Baby...airport...pick me up..." "You're halfway unintelligible. Was the exam bad enough to turn your brain to mush?" "Airport..." "No! Why? Just take the train back like we talked about." "Dying...baby...help...sick..." "How sick?" "Sick..." "OK, I'll load the kids and head your way when the plane's halfway here." And all of that's paraphrasing. I really have no memory of anything after punching in her phone number.

I made it onto the earlier flight and immediately passed out. The next thing I knew, a flight attendant was punching me and screaming in my ear. Well, actually, she was very gently shaking me and asking, just above a whisper, "Sir, are you continuing on to Albany?" "Whaaaa...no...not there..." "Then you need to get off the plane, sir! We're just about to start boarding for the next leg of our trip!" "Oh...OK..." But it really seemed like punching and screaming at the time.

I deplaned and made my way to the arrivals area, where my wife soon pulled in and loaded me into the car. I remember nothing else from that night.

TL;DR: I had the flu when I took Step 2 CS, and you should never ever fly anywhere with me because I'm toxic to the entire concept of on-time flights. Seriously. You should hear about my outbound trip to South Africa last spring.

 

[Microbug]

OK, didn't mean to leave you hanging. Busy day.

I took Step 2 CS in September 2008 -- a bit earlier than many of my classmates because of the military match. My school was within an hour flight of Chicago, so that's the site I chose, and my flight was scheduled for a 5 pm departure the evening prior to the exam. I expected that would put me on the ground around 6:30 (taxi time, doncha know) and I expected to be cozily tucked into my room by 8.

The city's light rail system ran about a quarter mile from my house, so I walked to the train stop with my carry-on and got myself to the airport. I encountered no significant slowdowns en route to the airport, and, after allowing TSA to get to third base with me, I got to my departure gate and boarded the plane. Nestled into the seat that would be my home for the next 90 minutes, I pulled out my First Aid book to brush up. The flight attendants made their announcements about locking the cabin door, and I thought we'd be off shortly.

And then we sat...and sat...and sat...

Half an hour after our scheduled departure time, the captain came over the PA system to explain things. "Folks, we've hit a bit of a snag. While the First Mate was doing his last pre-flight walk around the plane, he noticed feathers in one of the engines. So we've called the mechanic to come have a look. Probably the engine is fine, but we need to be sure." Yes. Yes, you do need to be sure.

So we kept waiting...and waiting...

Another hour passed. The flight crew provided a drink service. Then they started offering to put interested parties in hotels for the night. I flagged down a flight attendant. "Um...I live in town, so I don't need a hotel, but will this plane get off the ground tonight?" "We believe so, sir. The captain will let us know as soon as the mechanic gets here." "We're an hour and a half past departure time and the mechanic hasn't even shown up yet?" "I'm terribly sorry, sir." "Not your fault. I'm just stressed over an exam I have tomorrow."

The wait continued until 7 o'clock. At that point, the captain walked down the aisle shaking hands and offering personal apologies. When he got to me, I asked him what to do. "You see, I have a medical board exam in Chicago at 8 am tomorrow. If I go home and start driving right now, I can get there by 4 am. I don't want to do that, but I really can't just no-show." He was very sympathetic. "I understand why you're anxious. We'll get you to Chicago tonight. You don't need to do anything dangerous."

Around 8, we finally got another update from the flight crew: "Folks, the mechanic got here, took a look, and said he needed to go get his tools. He should be back by 8:30." WTF?! I thought. He's a mechanic and he didn't think he might need his tools?! Can you imagine how that mentality would work in other professions?
- Educator: "I came to give your lecture today, but I need to go back to my office and put together some slides first."
- Soldier: "Sir, I'm ready to face the enemy. Just let me go back to my barracks and get my rifle."
- Lebron: "Let's play some ball! I gotta go home and get my shoes first, though."
- Trump: "I'm ready to sound insane but I just can't remember my Twitter password."

At 9 o'clock -- four hours after our scheduled departure -- we finally got off the ground. It wasn't until we got up to 20,000 feet that the pilot could finally see my stress level hanging over Lake Michigan like a horrible cloud of med school anxiety. The flight was uneventful, and by 10:30 I was getting a cab to my hotel. I got checked in by 11:15 and got ready for bed. And then I noticed that I was starting to feel sick. Sweet heavens above, I thought, don't let me get sick. Not now. With that thought, I went to bed.

The next morning, I awoke at 6 am. My URI symptoms were worse than when I'd gone to sleep, but I got showered and felt a bit better. That's the best I felt all day.

As I went through the exam, my illness steadily increased. By the morning break, my throat was sore. By lunch, my sinuses were completely full. By the afternoon break, I had body aches. By the end of the exam, I had chills. My tenth patient encounter featured a patient who led off by berating me for his ED wait time; I mustered every shred of professionalism I had and resisted the strong urge to point out that I was clearly sicker than him. I actually asked the twelfth patient to pass me the box of tissues sitting next to her.

When the exam ended, I felt like a train had hit me. I dragged my carcass onto an airport shuttle, got myself to my gate (TSA gave me very little hassle; clearly, they wanted nothing to do with me), and died a little inside when I realized that my flight home wasn't for another four hours. The airline representative put me on standby for a flight that was departing little over an hour later. I took a seat and called my wife, who was home with our two children, aged 1 and 3. "Baby come...airport...pick me up..." "You're halfway unintelligible. Was the exam bad enough to turn your brain to mush?" "Airport..." "No! Why? Just take the train back like we talked about." "Dying...baby...help...sick..." "How sick?" "Sick..." "OK, I'll load the kids and head your way when the plane's halfway here." And all of that's paraphrasing. I really have no memory of anything after punching in her phone number.

I made it onto the earlier flight and immediately passed out. The next thing I know, a flight attendant was punching me and screaming in my ear. Well, actually, she was very gently shaking me and asking, just above a whisper, "Sir, are you continuing on to (city name)?" "Whaaaa...no...not there..." "Then you need to get off the plane, sir! We're just about to start boarding for the next leg of our trip!" "Oh...OK..." But it really seemed like punching and screaming at the time.

I deplaned and made my way to the arrivals area, where my wife soon pulled in and loaded me into the car. I remember nothing else from that night.

TL;DR: I had the flu when I took Step 2, and you should never ever fly anywhere with me because I'm toxic to the entire concept of on-time flights. Seriously. You should hear about my outbound trip to South Africa last spring.

now you need to share your outbound trip to South Africa.

 

[HomeSkool]

now you need to share your outbound trip to South Africa.

That's a story for another day. But actually, it's, like, every time I fly. Pittsburgh to Portland via Salt Lake City, San Antonio to Tegucigalpa via Houston, Charlotte to Johannesburg via Washington (and Frankfurt, as a mid-trip bonus!), Charlotte to Mumbai via London (and the return trip!). I got to do actual doctoring at Disney World, on a plane flying over Libya, and on the Chunnel train. It's just...do yourself a favor, and don't ever travel with me, EVER.

 

[ekmf27050]

OK, didn't mean to leave you hanging. Busy day.

I took Step 2 CS in September 2008 -- a bit earlier than many of my classmates because of the military match. My school was within an hour flight of Chicago, so that's the site I chose, and my flight was scheduled for a 5 pm departure the evening prior to the exam. I expected that would put me on the ground around 6:30 (taxi time, doncha know) and I expected to be cozily tucked into my room by 8.

The city's light rail system ran about a quarter mile from my house, so I walked to the train stop with my carry-on and got myself to the airport. I encountered no significant slowdowns en route to the airport, and, after allowing TSA to get to third base with me, I got to my departure gate and boarded the plane. Nestled into the seat that would be my home for the next 90 minutes, I pulled out my First Aid book to brush up. The flight attendants made their announcements about locking the cabin door, and I thought we'd be off shortly.

And then we sat...and sat...and sat...

Half an hour after our scheduled departure time, the captain came over the PA system to explain things. "Folks, we've hit a bit of a snag. While the First Mate was doing his last pre-flight walk around the plane, he noticed feathers in one of the engines. So we've called the mechanic to come have a look. Probably the engine is fine, but we need to be sure." Yes. Yes, you do need to be sure.

So we kept waiting...and waiting...

Another hour passed. The flight crew provided a drink service. Then they started offering to put interested parties in hotels for the night. I flagged down a flight attendant. "Um...I live in town, so I don't need a hotel, but will this plane get off the ground tonight?" "We believe so, sir. The captain will let us know as soon as the mechanic gets here." "We're an hour and a half past departure time and the mechanic hasn't even shown up yet?" "I'm terribly sorry, sir." "Not your fault. I'm just stressed over an exam I have tomorrow."

The wait continued until 7 o'clock. At that point, the captain walked down the aisle shaking hands and offering personal apologies. When he got to me, I asked him what to do. "You see, I have a medical board exam in Chicago at 8 am tomorrow. If I go home and start driving right now, I can get there by 4 am. I don't want to do that, but I really can't just no-show." He was very sympathetic. "I understand why you're anxious. We'll get you to Chicago tonight. You don't need to do anything dangerous."

Around 8, we finally got another update from the flight crew: "Folks, the mechanic got here, took a look, and said he needed to go get his tools. He should be back by 8:30." WTF?! I thought. He's a mechanic and he didn't think he might need his tools?! Can you imagine how that mentality would work in other professions?
- Educator: "I came to give your lecture today, but I need to go back to my office and put together some slides first."
- Soldier: "Sir, I'm ready to face the enemy. Just let me go back to my barracks and get my rifle."
- Lebron: "Let's play some ball! I gotta go home and get my shoes first, though."
- Trump: "I'm ready to sound insane but I just can't remember my Twitter password."

At 9 o'clock -- four hours after our scheduled departure -- we finally got off the ground. It wasn't until we got up to 20,000 feet that the pilot could finally see my stress level hanging over Lake Michigan like a horrible cloud of med school anxiety. The flight was uneventful, and by 10:30 I was getting a cab to my hotel. I got checked in by 11:15 and got ready for bed. And then I noticed that I was starting to feel sick. Sweet heavens above, I thought, don't let me get sick. Not now. With that thought, I went to bed.

The next morning, I awoke at 6 am. My URI symptoms were worse than when I'd gone to sleep, but I got showered and felt a bit better. That's the best I felt all day.

As I went through the exam, my illness steadily increased. By the morning break, my throat was sore. By lunch, my sinuses were completely full. By the afternoon break, I had body aches. By the end of the exam, I had chills. My tenth patient encounter featured a patient who led off by berating me for his ED wait time; I mustered every shred of professionalism I had and resisted the strong urge to point out that I was clearly sicker than him. I actually asked the twelfth patient to pass me the box of tissues sitting next to her.

When the exam ended, I felt like a train had hit me. I dragged my carcass onto an airport shuttle, got myself to my gate (TSA gave me very little hassle; clearly, they wanted nothing to do with me), and died a little inside when I realized that my flight home wasn't for another four hours. The airline representative put me on standby for a flight that was departing little over an hour later. I took a seat and called my wife, who was home with our two children, aged 1 and 3. "Baby come...airport...pick me up..." "You're halfway unintelligible. Was the exam bad enough to turn your brain to mush?" "Airport..." "No! Why? Just take the train back like we talked about." "Dying...baby...help...sick..." "How sick?" "Sick..." "OK, I'll load the kids and head your way when the plane's halfway here." And all of that's paraphrasing. I really have no memory of anything after punching in her phone number.

I made it onto the earlier flight and immediately passed out. The next thing I know, a flight attendant was punching me and screaming in my ear. Well, actually, she was very gently shaking me and asking, just above a whisper, "Sir, are you continuing on to (city name)?" "Whaaaa...no...not there..." "Then you need to get off the plane, sir! We're just about to start boarding for the next leg of our trip!" "Oh...OK..." But it really seemed like punching and screaming at the time.

I deplaned and made my way to the arrivals area, where my wife soon pulled in and loaded me into the car. I remember nothing else from that night.

TL;DR: I had the flu when I took Step 2, and you should never ever fly anywhere with me because I'm toxic to the entire concept of on-time flights. Seriously. You should hear about my outbound trip to South Africa last spring.

I'm CRYING. Like, I feel so bad for you, but I hope every time you look back on it you can laugh at the fact that you survived!

I have a mild comparison-- was flying out the night before my interview at my dream school. Like you, I was set to get in early, settle in at my hotel, etc etc. Got emails from Delta right before I left for the airport that my first flight was delayed 2 hours, making me miss my connection. I hop in my cab to the airport and start doing damage control.

At TSA, I get a nice back rub and the lady literally stuck her fingers in my hair. Then, they confiscated my nail file and spent 30 mins insisting I had a corkscrew in my bag (fun fact: I did not.)

I find out they switched me to a whole different airline (??????) and I don't have a seat assignment. Now, my legs are very long (like, can only buy pants from special online stores long) so if I don't fly with an aisle seat I'm miserable. I go to the gate to try to get a seat, but they'll only give out seats 30 mins before boarding. 30 minutes before boarding, I head back up. They're not ready yet. 20 minutes later, I go up again to ask for an aisle seat. "Oh, your seat has been assigned and you can't change it. Even if you pay extra."

So, for the first time I forked over $8 for airplane wine and settled in to watch Anchorman on my phone and soothe my airplane rage. I rolled in to the hotel at 1am, and blearily asked the lady at the desk if my economy room had an iron. She replied with a flat "no". I asked if I could get one. "That depends." At this point, to avoid getting arrested before my interview, I just took my room keys and said I would call about it in the morning. The next day, as I tried to find my way to the interview, there was a literal blizzard.

Long story short, traveling is a nightmare, and I would love to hear your South Africa story 🙂

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Can you imagine how that mentality would work in other professions?

On my way to Israel from JFK, I realized when I got to the airport (3 hours away) that I’d forgotten my passport. D’oh!

 

[TelemarketingEnigma]

Honestly, the no headphones thing would be a deal breaker for me...

But you know what they say! Terrible interview luck turns into acceptances! ****

(****I just made that up and have absolutely no proof to support it)

There's a theater superstition that a bad dress rehearsal means you'll have a great performance, so I'm fully on board with your idea here

 

[Goro]

OK, didn't mean to leave you hanging. Busy day.

I took Step 2 CS in September 2008 -- a bit earlier than many of my classmates because of the military match. My school was within an hour flight of Chicago, so that's the site I chose, and my flight was scheduled for a 5 pm departure the evening prior to the exam. I expected that would put me on the ground around 6:30 (taxi time, doncha know) and I expected to be cozily tucked into my room by 8.

The city's light rail system ran about a quarter mile from my house, so I walked to the train stop with my carry-on and got myself to the airport. I encountered no significant slowdowns en route to the airport, and, after allowing TSA to get to third base with me, I got to my departure gate and boarded the plane. Nestled into the seat that would be my home for the next 90 minutes, I pulled out my First Aid book to brush up. The flight attendants made their announcements about locking the cabin door, and I thought we'd be off shortly.

And then we sat...and sat...and sat...

Half an hour after our scheduled departure time, the captain came over the PA system to explain things. "Folks, we've hit a bit of a snag. While the first mate was doing his last pre-flight walk around the plane, he noticed feathers in one of the engines. So we've called the mechanic to come have a look. Probably the engine is fine, but we need to be sure." Yes. Yes, you do need to be sure.

So we kept waiting...and waiting...

Another hour passed. The flight crew provided a drink service. Then they started offering to put interested parties in hotels for the night. I flagged down a flight attendant. "Um...I live in town, so I don't need a hotel, but will this plane get off the ground tonight?" "We believe so, sir. The captain will let us know as soon as the mechanic gets here." "We're an hour and a half past departure time and the mechanic hasn't even shown up yet?" "I'm terribly sorry, sir." "Not your fault. I'm just stressed over an exam I have tomorrow."

The wait continued until 7 o'clock. At that point, the captain walked down the aisle shaking hands and offering personal apologies. When he got to me, I asked him what to do. "You see, I have a medical board exam in Chicago at 8 am tomorrow. If I go home and start driving right now, I can get there by 4 am. I don't want to do that, but I really can't just no-show." He was very sympathetic. "I understand why you're anxious. We'll get you to Chicago tonight. You don't need to do anything dangerous."

Around 8, we finally got another update from the flight crew: "Folks, the mechanic got here, took a look, and said he needed to go get his tools. He should be back by 8:30." WTF?! I thought. He's a mechanic and he didn't think he might need his tools?! Can you imagine how that mentality would work in other professions?
- Educator: "I came to give your lecture today, but I need to go back to my office and put together some slides first."
- Soldier: "Sir, I'm ready to face the enemy. Just let me go back to my barracks and get my rifle."
- Lebron: "Let's play some ball! I gotta go home and get my shoes first, though."
- Trump: "I'm ready to sound insane but I just can't remember my Twitter password."

At 9 o'clock -- four hours after our scheduled departure -- we finally got off the ground. It wasn't until we got up to 20,000 feet that the pilot could finally see my stress level hanging over Lake Michigan like a horrible cloud of med school anxiety. The flight was uneventful, and by 10:30 I was getting a cab to my hotel. By 11:15 I was checked in and getting ready for bed. And then I noticed that I was starting to feel URI symptoms. Sweet heavens above, I thought, don't let me get sick. Not now. With that thought, I went to bed.

The next morning, I awoke at 6 am. My URI symptoms were worse than when I'd gone to sleep, but I felt a little better after showering. That's the best I felt all day.

As I went through the exam, my illness steadily increased. By the morning break, my throat was sore. By lunch, my sinuses were completely full. By the afternoon break, I had body aches. By the end of the exam, I had chills. My tenth patient encounter featured a patient who stated by berating me for his ED wait time; I mustered every shred of professionalism I had and resisted the urge to point out that I was clearly sicker than him. I actually asked the twelfth patient to pass me the box of tissues sitting next to her.

When the exam ended, I felt like a train had hit me. I dragged my carcass onto an airport shuttle, got myself to my gate (TSA gave me very little hassle; they clearly wanted nothing to do with me), and died a little inside when I realized that my flight home wasn't for another four hours. The airline representative put me on standby for a flight that was departing little over an hour later. I took a seat and called my wife, who was home with our two children, aged 1 and 3. "Baby...airport...pick me up..." "You're halfway unintelligible. Was the exam bad enough to turn your brain to mush?" "Airport..." "No! Why? Just take the train back like we talked about." "Dying...baby...help...sick..." "How sick?" "Sick..." "OK, I'll load the kids and head your way when the plane's halfway here." And all of that's paraphrasing. I really have no memory of anything after punching in her phone number.

I made it onto the earlier flight and immediately passed out. The next thing I knew, a flight attendant was punching me and screaming in my ear. Well, actually, she was very gently shaking me and asking, just above a whisper, "Sir, are you continuing on to (city name)?" "Whaaaa...no...not there..." "Then you need to get off the plane, sir! We're just about to start boarding for the next leg of our trip!" "Oh...OK..." But it really seemed like punching and screaming at the time.

I deplaned and made my way to the arrivals area, where my wife soon pulled in and loaded me into the car. I remember nothing else from that night.

TL;DR: I had the flu when I took Step 2 CS, and you should never ever fly anywhere with me because I'm toxic to the entire concept of on-time flights. Seriously. You should hear about my outbound trip to South Africa last spring.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Did you get your flu shot that year??
I trust that you did fine on the exam?

I had to give my very first work-in-progress seminar in grad school while coming down with the flu. My symptoms were just like yours, except with dry cough, and especially the "hit by a 2x4 feeling". I did a fine job, and then went home to die.

 

[HomeSkool]

Did you get your flu shot that year??

No, I didn't start doing that until my intern year. I've had it every year since then, but I still ended up getting the flu twice more! In 2017, I rang in the new year by getting diagnosed with the flu at one of my health system's urgent care centers. I got put on Tamiflu and a prednisone burst pack, and I called in sick to work the following day. (That was one of only two times I've called in sick since 2008.)

But a few years ago, when the H1N1 had a late-season mutation and the vaccine missed it, I got that, and it sucked mightily. My symptoms started on a Thursday and worsened on Friday. I was on call from that Friday until Monday morning (this was at a smaller hospital before I came to my current large academic center, and it was home call). Motrin kept me kind of OK until about 3 pm, then I started to go downhill. We were in the OR until 8 that night, and by that time I had full straight decompensated. I was texting back and forth with our head OR nurse, and I told him I was going to just crash on a stretcher in the PACU for the night. He encouraged me to go home and I decided to take his advice. I was sick enough that I considered asking a colleague to do a call weekend swap with me; however, the OR suite was having some major HVAC work that weekend and the hospital leadership had said that all surgeries were to be sent out unless someone was actually eviscerated, so I decided to roll the dice. When I got home, I could feel that I was febrile, and in that state my thought process went something like this: "When this fever breaks, I'm going to pour sweat...and I don't want to drench my mattress...and I also don't want to drench the couch...and we have a carpet shampooer...so I'll lie down on the carpet in front of the fireplace." And that's what I did. And then stayed there trying to die for the next 72 hours. During that time, I ate only one bowl of chicken broth and two bowls of ice cream, and I dragged myself to the bathroom once a day. On Monday morning, my weight was down seven pounds. It was pretty horrible.

I trust that you did fine on the exam?

I passed!

 

[HomeSkool]

OK, I'll share the South Africa story, but first, you need a primer on why you should never, ever travel with me. DISCLAIMER: It's really long. You've been warned.

2003
Got married that summer. Wife and I house-sat for my folks in the Pacific Northwest while they were on a month-long sabbatical all over Europe. At the end of the summer, we went back down to school in Utah driving a GMC Safari and towing a Uhaul trailer with all our earthly possessions. Around the exit for Burley and Rupert (on I-84 in southwest Idaho) we looked at the gas gauge and said, "We're fine, we'll gas up in Snowville (Utah)." When we got to Snowville, we learned that the whole town had been without power for three days so both gas stations were offline. We were down to one gallon of gas. We were getting 15 mpg. The nearest gas pumps were in Tremonton, 30 miles away. With no other options, we started driving. We ran out of gas halfway there and called the state highway patrol. A trooper came out and gave my wife a ride to Tremonton while I stayed with our van. She came back with a one-gallon gas can, I asked why she didn't get a bigger one, she said that's the only size they had, I asked why she didn't get two of them, and she said "oh yeah." (She's actually super-smart. That's, like, the only dumb thing she's ever done as long as I've known her.) We coasted into Tremonton on fumes, but the rest of the trip was fine.

2004
For Christmas 2003, my in-laws gave us a 1997 Honda Civic for Christmas. We were going to drive back to Utah on January 2, and I was scheduled to teach a Kaplan MCAT prep course on January 3. On New Year's Day, there was a huge blizzard in the Portland area. Young and stupid, we thought, "Crap, this is going to make our trip back take a second day. We should hit the road now." In Oregon, they throw down gravel instead of salting the roads, the philosophy being why would you only want to crash your car when you can crash it and have a cracked windshield. So we set out and crawled along I-84. Just before The Dalles, we came around a curve in the highway to find some idiot stopped right in the road to put his chains on. I hit the brakes and the car slid into the guardrail. It cracked the front fender. Due to the poverty of undergrad, med school, and residency, I never fixed that bumper before replacing the car in 2012. We pulled into The Dalles to put chains on and found that the ones my father-in-law had put in the trunk were the wrong size. It being New Year's Day, half the places in town were closed and the other half were sold out of chains, so we had to stay in a hotel for the night. We'd made it a whopping 90 miles. The next day, we bought chains and limped across Oregon all day long. I planned to stop as soon as we got to Idaho. The very moment we crossed the state line, though, the roads got completely clear (amazing what salting them does). We drove for another couple hours and overnighted in Burley (oh, the irony). (Edit: we actually overnighted in Twin Falls.) And yes, all this meant that I had to call Kaplan and ask them to find a sub because I wouldn't get home until the night of January 3, so I crashed my car and had to miss the money for teaching that class anyway.

2005
Flew to a med school interview. Airplane had a whole bunch of activated Army reservists, and their bags maxed out the plane's weight limit. No civilian bags made it. I was flying out on Saturday for a Monday interview. I had no toiletries or interview clothes, and no decent clothing stores were open on Sunday. My bag arrived Sunday night and the airline said they'd get it to me within 24 hours. I couldn't wait that long so I took a cab to the airport to get it. That's how I learned not to check bags unless I have to.

We moved from Utah to a city far to the east for me to start med school. My wife was seven months pregnant with our first child. We were driving a Penske truck with all our stuff, and towing our 1997 Civic behind it. On day one, way out in western Nebraska, the trailer towing our car shredded a tire. I got us over to the shoulder and called the Penske people. The guy was really awesome and helpful, but the nearest replacement trailer was all the way out in Omaha, and a MASSIVE storm system was coming up behind us. Eventually, the solution was for us to leave the trailer on the side of I-80 and drive east while the Penske driver started driving west. The awesome rep took my cell number home from work and called me periodically over the next few hours for updates. So my very pregnant wife drove the truck and I drove the car, and we stopped in Kearney that night. The Penske driver met us there and hooked up the new trailer. The next day, we got to Gary, Indiana, and stayed in the Trump Hotel there. It was... OK, yeah, moving on. We reached our destination the final day and realized -- too late -- that we'd signed a rental agreement in a very scary neighborhood. The apartment reeked of dog piss. My wife started vacuuming the bedroom and the vacuum was completely full of dog hair halfway through that room. The rental property management denied that any dog had ever lived in that apartment. I was groped by a stranger in front of the building. That day was my birthday. (We broke lease and moved three days later.)

2007
Flew from our home to Washington State via Salt Lake City. Gave our 19-month-old daughter Benadryl to make her sleep on the first flight and instead got a monkey on crack cocaine for the next four hours. In Salt Lake, we had a four-hour layover and then went to our gate to find our flight was canceled. The airline put us in a hotel that night with a crack-of-dawn flight the next morning. My wife's grandmother died the day of our first flight, so we only got half a day with my in-laws before they left for the funeral. After a few days hanging out with my teenaged brother-in-law, we went to my parents' house and learned that my dad had been diagnosed with a terminal illness a few months earlier but hadn't told me yet because he didn't want me to get distracted from studying for Step 1, which I took immediately prior to this trip (I very much appreciate him not telling me until after the exam). The whole trip was a great big fail.

2008
The whole Step 2 CS thing happened. Let's never talk about that again.

Flew out to Portland for Christmas. Due to massive snow at our destination, no flights were going in or out. We ended up spending a couple days at my wife's aunt and uncle's house outside Pittsburgh before we could make the trip. It was at this point that my wife decided to stop traveling with me.

2009
Moved from my med school city to Texas. Had a second car at this point. It was a POS. The only good thing about the car is that I could yell, "I drive a Dodge Stratus!" The A/C was already dead and would cost more than the car's value to fix. The CD player died during the trip, so I bought a little stereo and a bunch of batteries at a Wal-Mart in Arkansas. The car started hemorrhaging oil some time during the trip. For the last day of the trip, we had to stop every half hour to check my car's oil level and top it up.

2013
Medical mission to Tegucigalpa about three months before I graduated from residency. Flew through Houston. Plane made an unscheduled stop in San Pedro Sula because people were burning crap around Tegus and there was too much smoke in the air. SPS had the highest murder rate in the world at that time. We all refused to get off the plane. They opened the doors and we sat on the tarmac in the heat for 90 minutes. Then we finished the trip. Holy crap, I thought I was gonna die when we were landing in Tegus. That airport's runway is BAD. Just Google it. Srsly.

Graduated residency on June 30. On July 2, was moving family from Texas to Georgia. Got in a horrific car accident that totaled two cars and got two people helicoptered to trauma centers. One of them stayed in an induced coma for a month with a severe cardiac contusion. Praise the Lord, everyone lived.

2015
Business trip to teach ATLS in San Antonio. Flight home was canceled. That night, got called and told I'd have to work the next day. Said I couldn't due to travel. Got chewed out for failing to get on a different flight even though there were none.

Took family to visit my grandparents in Utah. Supposed to have a layover in Dallas, but ended up circling in the sky for over an hour due to tornado weather on the ground, then diverted to Tulsa due to low fuel. Son got airsick and puked. Refueled in Tulsa, then went back to Dallas. Had a long layover there but got onto a later flight. On the way home, our flight out of SLC was delayed. When we got to Dallas, I left my wife with our kids, sprinted to our connecting gate, and got there just in time to keep them from closing it. My wife caught up. We were the last ones on the plane. An airline rep gave me flak about cutting it so close. As politely as possible, I suggested that he go screw himself.

All of that is the lead-up to the South Africa story. Wait for it...

 

[Microbug]

OK, I'll share the South Africa story, but first, you need a primer on why you should never, ever travel with me. DISCLAIMER: It's really long. You've been warned.

2003
Got married that summer. Wife and I house-sat for my folks in the Pacific Northwest while they were on a month-long sabbatical all over Europe. At the end of the summer, we went back down to school in Utah driving a GMC Safari and towing a Uhaul trailer with all our earthly possessions. Around the exit for Burley and Rupert (on I-84 in southwest Idaho) we looked at the gas gauge and said, "We're fine, we'll gas up in Snowville (Utah)." When we got to Snowville, we learned that the whole town had been without power for three days so both gas stations were offline. We were down to one gallon of gas. We were getting 15 mpg. The nearest gas pumps were in Tremonton, 30 miles away. With no other options, we started driving. We ran out of gas halfway there and called the state highway patrol. A trooper came out and gave my wife a ride to Tremonton while I stayed with our van. She came back with a one-gallon gas can, I asked why she didn't get a bigger one, she said that's the only size they had, I asked why she didn't get two of them, and she said "oh yeah." (She's actually super-smart. That's, like, the only dumb thing she's ever done as long as I've known her.) We coasted into Tremonton on fumes, but the rest of the trip was fine.

That winter, her parents gave us a 1997 Honda Civic for Christmas. We were going to drive back to Utah on January 2, and I was scheduled to teach a Kaplan MCAT prep course on January 3. On New Year's Day, there was a huge blizzard in the Portland area. Young and stupid, we thought, "Crap, this is going to make our trip back take a second day. We should hit the road now." In Oregon, they throw down gravel instead of salting the roads, the philosophy being why would you only want to crash your car when you can crash it and have a cracked windshield. So we set out and crawled along I-84. Just before The Dalles, we came around a curve in the highway to find some idiot stopped right in the road to put his chains on. I hit the brakes and the car slid into the guardrail. It cracked the front fender. Due to the poverty of undergrad, med school, and residency, I never fixed that bumper before replacing the car in 2012. We pulled into The Dalles to put chains on and found that the ones my father-in-law had put in the trunk were the wrong size. It being New Year's Day, half the places in town were closed and the other half were sold out of chains, so we had to stay in a hotel for the night. We'd made it a whopping 90 miles. The next day, we bought chains and limped across Oregon all day long. I planned to stop as soon as we got to Idaho. The very moment we crossed the state line, though, the roads got completely clear (amazing what salting them does). We drove for another couple hours and overnighted in Burley (oh, the irony). And yes, all this meant that I had to call Kaplan and ask them to find a sub because I wouldn't get home until the night of January 3, so I crashed my car and had to miss the money for teaching that class anyway.

2005
Flew to a med school interview. Airplane had a whole bunch of activated Army reservists, and their bags maxed out the plane's weight limit. No civilian bags made it. I was flying out on Saturday for a Monday interview. I had no toiletries or interview clothes, and no decent clothing stores were open on Sunday. My bag arrived Sunday night and the airline said they'd get it to me within 24 hours. I couldn't wait that long so I took a cab to the airport to get it. That's how I learned not to check bags unless I have to.

We moved from Utah to a city far to the east for me to start med school. My wife was seven months pregnant with our first child. We were driving a Penske truck with all our stuff, and towing our 1997 Civic behind it. On day one, way out in western Nebraska, the trailer towing our car shredded a tire. I got us over to the shoulder and called the Penske people. The guy was really awesome and helpful, but the nearest replacement trailer was all the way out in Omaha, and a MASSIVE storm system was coming up behind us. Eventually, the solution was for us to leave the trailer on the side of I-80 and drive east while the Penske driver started driving west. The awesome rep took my cell number home from work and called me periodically over the next few hours for updates. So my very pregnant wife drove the truck and I drove the car, and we stopped in Kearney that night. The Penske driver met us there and hooked up the new trailer. The next day, we got to Gary, Indiana, and stayed in the Trump Hotel there. It was... OK, yeah, moving on. We reached our destination the final day and realized -- too late -- that we'd signed a rental agreement in a very scary neighborhood. The apartment reeked of dog piss. My wife started vacuuming the bedroom and the vacuum was completely full of dog hair halfway through that room. The rental property management denied that any dog had ever lived in that apartment. I was groped by a stranger in front of the building. That day was my birthday. (We broke lease and moved three days later.)

2007
Flew from our home to Washington State via Salt Lake City. Gave our 19-month-old daughter Benadryl to make her sleep on the first flight and instead got a monkey on crack cocaine for the next four hours. In Salt Lake, we had a four-hour layover and then went to our gate to find our flight was canceled. The airline put us in a hotel that night with a crack-of-dawn flight the next morning. My wife's grandmother died the day of our first flight, so we only got half a day with my in-laws before they left for the funeral. After a few days hanging out with my teenaged brother-in-law, we went to my parents' house and learned that my dad had been diagnosed with a terminal illness a few months earlier but hadn't told me yet because he didn't want me to get distracted from studying for Step 1, which I took immediately prior to this trip (I very much appreciate him not telling me until after the exam). The whole trip was a great big fail.

2008
The whole Step 2 CS thing happened. Let's never talk about that again.

Flew out to Portland for Christmas. Due to massive snow at our destination, no flights were going in or out. We ended up spending a couple days at my wife's aunt and uncle's house outside Pittsburgh before we could make the trip. It was at this point that my wife decided to stop traveling with me.

2009
Moved from my med school city to west Texas. Had a second car at this point. It was a POS. The only good thing about the car is that I could yell, "I drive a Dodge Stratus!" The A/C was already dead and would cost more than the car's value to fix. The CD player died during the trip, so I bought a little stereo and a bunch of batteries at a Wal-Mart in Arkansas. The car started hemorrhaging oil some time during the trip. For the last day of the trip, we had to stop every half hour to check my car's oil level and top it up.

2013
Medical mission to Tegucigalpa about three months before I graduated from residency. Flew through Houston. Plane made an unscheduled stop in San Pedro Sula because people were burning crap around Tegus and there was too much smoke in the air. SPS had the highest murder rate in the world at that time. We all refused to get off the plane. They opened the doors and we sat on the tarmac in the heat for 90 minutes. Then we finished the trip. Holy crap, I thought I was gonna die when we were landing in Tegus. That airport's runway is BAD. Just Google it. Srsly.

Graduated residency on June 30. On July 2, was moving family from Texas to Georgia. Got in a horrific car accident that totaled two cars and got two people helicoptered to trauma centers. One of them stayed in an induced coma for a month with a severe cardiac contusion. Praise the Lord, everyone lived.

2015
Business trip to teach ATLS in San Antonio. Flight home was canceled. That night, got called and told I'd have to work the next day. Said I couldn't due to travel. Got chewed out for failing to get on a different flight even though there were none.

Took family to visit grandparents in Utah. Supposed to have a layover in Dallas, but ended up circling in the sky for over an hour due to tornado weather on the ground, then diverted to Tulsa due to low fuel. Son got airsick and puked. Refueled in Tulsa, then went back to Dallas. Had a long layover there but got onto a later flight. On the way home, our flight out of SLC was delayed. When we got to Dallas, I left my wife with our three kids, sprinted to our connecting gate, and got there just in time to keep them from closing it. My wife caught up. We were the last ones on the plane. An airline rep gave me flak about cutting it so close. As politely as possible, I suggested that he go screw himself.

All of that is the lead-up to the South Africa story. Wait for it...

patiently waiting...

 

[Dr. Souk]

At my MMI they gave us stickers with our name & picture on them to give to each interviewer. "Don't forget to bring your stickers from room to room!" Left mine in my first room... had to awkwardly have the admissions person go back in and grab them for me.

Display of good delegation skills though. lol

 

[Goro]

OK, I'll share the South Africa story, but first, you need a primer on why you should never, ever travel with me. DISCLAIMER: It's really long. You've been warned.
...

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

 

[narla_hotep]

Wow, some of the stories in here are straight up crazy lol. I don't have anything like that but some weird things definitely happened in my interviews. In one of mine one of the other applicants had a nosebleed, and I said something dumb like "oh no, it must really suck to get that during an interview." Then literally later that same day, I was blowing my nose and felt something pop, and the tissue was instantly soaked with blood, so I had to run to the bathroom before it got on my nice clothes. Thank goodness I still had a few minutes until my next interview to clean myself up but that was pretty ironic.

In another interview, I stayed with a current student, though when I made the plans I was unaware I'd have to sleep on the floor of her tiny dorm room. As soon as I finished unpacking my stuff and being sad about my rough accommodations, the student said she had to Skype her boyfriend and I should go out and "explore the city" until she was done... aka she kicked me out. So I spent the evening before my interview wandering around Boston till I found a small art museum to hang out in until it closed.

And finally, one of my interviewers at a school was asking me a ton of ethics questions, starting from the relatively normal and finally ending up with weird gems like "What would be your reaction if you saw your mother's doctor getting drunk at a bar?" I was at a loss on how to answer and finally said it depended on what he was doing; if he was just minding his own business and wasn't doing surgery on my mom the next morning I would leave him alone bc its his own social life, but if he had to treat my mother soon or if he was being violent/rowdy I would tell my mom and/or report him somewhere. There was a long awkward pause and the interviewer said "Oh, so you wouldn't mind as long as he's a happy drunk?" and after a few more formalities basically just ended the interview right there.

 

[HomeSkool]

Sorry to hijack the interview shenanigans thread to talk about my travel woes. In my defense, this is really cathartic for me.

Gather ye round for the tale of...

HomeSkool's Trip to South Africa

I went to a non-medical conference in South Africa last March. In October, I went on Expedia and booked my air travel. I would fly on American Airlines to JFK, then South African Airways direct to Johannesburg, departing on Tuesday, March 14. (Yes, I'm going to name the airlines in this post. The dumb and the guilty deserve not protection.) My conference was to begin at 8 am on Friday, March 17.

December 6
I received a call from Expedia telling me that my outbound flights were changing. American had bumped back the timing of my flight to JFK, which would make me miss my connection. To avoid this, Expedia changed my outbound itinerary to be a flight to Dulles with United, then a direct flight to Johannesburg with SAA. My layover in Washington would be just over two hours long. My return trip was unchanged.

Monday, March 13
Every day, SAA has two flights go directly from Johannesburg to the US: one to JFK, the other to Dulles. A nor'easter was blowing across the eastern seaboard, and an SAA rep called me to say that neither of their inbound flights would be coming that day. That meant that there would be no airplane in either New York or Washington to take me to South Africa the following day. The rep moved my outbound itinerary back 24 hours.

Wednesday, March 15
Normally, I pack a carry-on bag with a couple changes of clothes and my toiletries. In this case, people attending my conference had been asked to donate items to the Soweto Red Cross, so I filled my smaller suitcase with brand new towels and packed all my personal effects in my larger one. I planned to check both bags.

I drove 90 minutes to my departure airport and took the shuttle in from long-term parking. I carry a knife in my pocket (a habit I picked up in Basic), and I didn't realize it was still there until I got to the terminal. I proactively alerted TSA (with my hands in plain view, of course). It turns out they now allow you mail such things back to yourself.

Once I arrived at my gate, I waited. My flight was significantly delayed. The United reps announced that Dulles was only operating one runway due to the weather, which meant we couldn't take off because there was nowhere for us to land (they had to space out arrivals). We eventually got off the ground about two hours late. Then we spun donuts in the sky over Virginia for twenty minutes before we could land. Once we got on the ground, I bolted to the monitors and saw that my connecting flight was in the next terminal. I texted my friends, telling them I was on the ground and asking them to tell the SAA people not to close the aircraft door. They passed the message on. I was down at the end of the terminal, so I sprinted to the terminal's midpoint to get on the interterminal shuttle. Then I sprinted all the way down the next terminal to get to my gate. I arrived just as they closed the door. They refused to let me on the flight. I begged and pleaded, but they were unmoved.

I made my way to the United customer service desk. The woman behind the desk was very sweet, the brightest spot in this whole sordid affair. She rebooked me on the route that would get me to Johannesburg the very fastest. My new itinerary had me flying to Frankfurt on United at 11 pm that night (it was 6 pm at the time), then having an all-day layover, and then flying with SAA to Johannesburg, arriving around 8 am on Friday. She sent a message to the baggage handlers informing them of my changed itinerary. I made my way to my new gate and waited. The flight to Frankfurt was uneventful.

Thursday, March 16
Upon arriving in Frankfurt, I decided that I really deserved a massage at one of the in-airport spas. Then I got some food and wandered a bit. I found that they have showers there, so I went to pull a little cash from the ATM. The smallest note available was €10. The shower cost €6. The girl at the counter couldn't make change. FML.

I spent the rest of the day waiting for my 9 pm flight to South Africa. We got off the ground on time. No one was in the seat next to me, so I curled up and tried to sleep. Some time after midnight, I managed to fall asleep, but at 1 am a flight attendant started talking over the PA system. Why are they yelling at us? I thought. Then I realized what they were saying. Oh, they're asking for a doctor. (pause) Oh. A doctor. That means me. Dammit. I got up and found a flight attendant. Another passenger had syncopized (likely dehydration with a vasovagal component). A UK-trained physician also responded, and we tag-teamed a quick in-flight workup. The flight attendants asked us if the captain needed to do an emergency landing. "Aren't we over Libya right now?" I asked the other doctor. "Yes," she replied. "Then regardless of this patient's status, the answer is no, don't land. It's better that one patient should perish than that we all should get killed," I said. But the patient was OK.

Friday, March 17
I landed in Johannesburg at 8:15 am and proceeded through the passport check and on to the baggage claim. By 9 am, I realized my bags hadn't made it, so I went to file a claim. The agent looked them up and found they were still at Dulles. I wanted to cry. He said they'd go out on that night's nonstop flight to Johannesburg, arriving at 4:45 pm local time on Saturday.

I took a cab to the hotel and got in to the conference. Everyone else was in business casual dress. The only clothing I had was the t-shirt and jeans I'd been wearing since Wednesday morning. My conference was too jam-packed to allow time to shop for new clothes. That night, I took a shower and washed my t-shirt, underwear, and socks with hand soap. I hung up my shirt and socks to dry, and I used a blow dryer on my underwear until it was warm (but still completely wet) before putting it on and going to bed.

Saturday, March 18
I went to my conference wearing the same t-shirt and jeans. By the afternoon, I was famous among the 150 or so attendees. People kept coming up to me on breaks and saying, "I heard what happened. Is that for real?"

The plane that was supposed to have my luggage arrived that afternoon, but the airline's bag tracking website didn't update. I tried in vain to find a phone number for the local SAA baggage office, but all I could find was their central baggage desk. I called. They were closed. So I called United. I asked for an update on my bags and the representative said he couldn't provide one since they'd been handed off to another airline. I responded that I had checked my bags with United and it was therefore United's obligation to make sure I received them. His response was an extremely polite version of "eff you, lolz." I asked why United hadn't sent my bags on the United flight to Frankfurt. He answered that they had tried to hand my bags off to SAA, but no one came to pick them up so United just hung on to them. Unable to contend with this line of reasoning, I hung up.

Sunday, March 19
I called SAA's central baggage office as soon as it opened at 6 am. They confirmed that my bags had arrived in Johannesburg the previous afternoon and provided me the direct phone number for the local baggage services desk. That desk opened at 8 am, and I called it right away. The woman who answered confirmed that my bags were at the international baggage desk and said they'd get them to me some time that day. "Please," I pleaded, "I was supposed to get here on Wednesday. Instead, I got here on Friday. I had to travel through an extra continent and go on two overnight flights instead of one. I'm at a business-dress conference wearing the same t-shirt and jeans for the fifth day in a row."

"Oh, we can't have that!" she replied.

"We do have that," I answered. "My conference ends at 3 pm today. Please. Help me get my bags."

"OK, here's what we'll do," she said. "I'll give you the direct number for the international baggage desk. We'll both call it until someone picks up, and we'll tell them to bring your bags down immediately."

"OK," I sighed. I called the number, which rang and rang, so I called back to the woman at the main baggage desk.

"I got them right away," she said, "and told them to bring your bags right over. I'm looking down the hall right now and I can see them bringing the bags. I'm going to send them to you straightaway. You'll have them before noon."

I went to my conference. Around 10:30, we got a break. I went to the lobby and the concierge pulled me aside. "Sir, your bags just got sent up to your room!"

I was so excited that I bolted upstairs and actually jumped up and down when I saw my bags waiting for me. They were intact, nothing damaged, and I made an executive decision: Screw punctuality, I'm going to shave. I shaved and changed into fresh clothes before going back to the conference. When I sat down at my table, the other four people in my group were startled. "I didn't even recognize you until you sat down!" one of them said.

As the conference ended, I stood to give DVT-prevention advice to the other conference participants. "First, an important announcement," I said. "My luggage arrived!" The whole room erupted in cheers.

The story actually does have a happy ending. My flight out of Johannesburg didn't leave until 9 pm Monday evening, so I went for a day-long safari at Pilanesberg National Park before going to the airport. It was amazing.

My trip home was uneventful.

If you boys and girls are very good (and interested), I'll share one final travel story: my trip with my wife to India, the UK, and France a few months ago. It's jacked up, too, but not as bad as the South Africa story.

 

[Microbug]

Sorry to hijack the interview shenanigans thread to talk about my travel woes. In my defense, this is really cathartic for me.

Gather ye round for the tale of...

HomeSkool's Trip to South Africa.

I went to a non-medical conference in South Africa last March. In October, I went on Expedia and booked my air travel. I would fly on American Airlines to JFK, then South African Airways direct to Johannesburg, departing on Tuesday, March 14. (Yes, I'm going to name the airlines in this post. The dumb and the guilty deserve not protection.) My conference was to begin at 8 am on Friday, March 17.
.
December 6.
I received a call from Expedia telling me that my outbound flights were changing. American had bumped back the timing of my flight to JFK, which would make me miss my connection. To avoid this, Expedia changed my outbound itinerary to be a flight to Dulles with United, then a direct flight to Johannesburg with SAA. My layover in Washington would be just over two hours long. My return trip was unchanged.
.
Monday, March 13.
Every day, SAA has two flights go directly from Johannesburg to the US: one to JFK, the other to Dulles. A nor'easter was blowing across the eastern seaboard, and an SAA rep called me to say that neither of their inbound flights would be coming that day. That meant that there would be no airplane in either New York or Washington to take me to South Africa the following day. The rep moved my outbound itinerary back 24 hours.
.
Wednesday, March 15.
Normally, I pack a carry-on bag with a couple changes of clothes and my toiletries. In this case, people attending my conference had been asked to donate items to the Soweto Red Cross, so I filled my smaller suitcase with brand new towels and packed all my personal effects in my larger one. I planned to check both bags.

I drove 90 minutes to my departure airport and took the shuttle in from long-term parking. I carry a knife in my pocket (a habit I picked up in Basic), and I didn't realize it was still there until I got to the terminal. I proactively alerted TSA (with my hands in plain view, of course). It turns out they now allow you mail such things back to yourself.

Once I arrived at my gate, I waited. My flight was significantly delayed. The United reps announced that Dulles was only operating one runway due to the weather, which meant we couldn't take off because there was nowhere for us to land (they had to space out arrivals). We eventually got off the ground about two hours late. Then we spun donuts in the sky over Virginia for twenty minutes before we could land. Once we got on the ground, I bolted to the monitors and saw that my connecting flight was in the next terminal. I texted my friends, telling them I was on the ground and asking them to tell the SAA people not to close the aircraft door. They passed the message on. I was down at the end of the terminal, so I sprinted to the terminal's midpoint to get on the interterminal shuttle. Then I sprinted all the way down the next terminal to get to my gate. I arrived just as they closed the door. They refused to let me on the flight. I begged and pleaded, but they were unmoved.

I made my way to the United customer service desk. The woman behind the desk was very sweet, the brightest spot in this whole sordid affair. She rebooked me on the route that would get me to Johannesburg the very fastest. My new itinerary had me flying to Frankfurt on United at 11 pm that night (it was 6 pm at the time), then having a 9-hour layover, and then flying with SAA to Johannesburg, arriving around 8 am on Friday. She sent a message to the baggage handlers informing them of my changed itinerary. I made my way to my new gate and waited. The flight to Frankfurt was uneventful.
.
Thursday, March 16.
Upon arriving in Frankfurt, I decided that I really deserved a massage at one of the in-airport spas. Then I got some food and wandered a bit. I found that they have showers there, so I went to pull a little cash from the ATM. The smallest note available was €10. The shower cost €6. The girl at the counter couldn't make change. FML.

I spent the rest of the day waiting for my 9 pm flight to South Africa. We got off the ground on time. No one was in the seat next to me, so I curled up and tried to sleep. Some time after midnight, I managed to fall asleep, but at 1 am a flight attendant started talking over the PA system. Why are they yelling at us? I thought. Then I realized what they were saying. Oh, they're asking for a doctor. (pause) Oh. A doctor. That means me. Dammit. I got up and found a flight attendant. Another passenger had syncopized (likely dehydration with a vasovagal component). A UK-trained physician also responded, and we tag-teamed a quick in-flight workup. The flight attendants asked us if the captain needed to do an emergency landing. "Aren't we over Libya right now?" I asked the other doctor. "Yes," she replied. "Then regardless of this patient's status, the answer is no, don't land. It's better that one patient should perish than that we all should get killed," I said. But the patient was OK.

Friday, March 17
I landed in Johannesburg at 8:15 am and proceeded through the passport check and on to the baggage claim. By 9 am, I realized my bags hadn't made it, so I went to file a claim. The agent looked them up and found they were still at Dulles. He said they'd go out on that night's nonstop flight to Johannesburg, arriving at 4:45 pm local time on Saturday.

I took a cab to the hotel and got in to the conference. Everyone else was in business casual dress. The only clothing I had was the t-shirt and jeans I'd been wearing since Wednesday morning. My conference was too jam-packed to allow time to shop for new clothes. That night, I took a shower and washed my t-shirt, underwear, and socks with hand soap. I hung up my shirt and socks to dry, and I used a blow dryer on my underwear until it was warm (but still completely wet) before putting it on and going to bed.

Saturday, March 18
I went to my conference wearing the same t-shirt and jeans. By the afternoon, I was famous among the 150 or so attendees. People kept coming up to me on breaks and saying, "I heard what happened. Is that for real?"

The plane that was supposed to have my luggage landed at a quarter to 5, but the airline's bag tracking website didn't update. I tried in vain to find a phone number for the local SAA baggage office, but all I could find was their central baggage desk. I called. They were closed. So I called United. I asked for an update on my bags and the representative said he couldn't provide one since they'd been handed off to another airline. I responded that I had checked my bags with United and it was therefore United's obligation to make sure I received them. His response was an extremely polite version of "eff you, lolz." I asked why United hadn't sent my bags on the United flight to Frankfurt. He answered that they had tried to hand my bags off to SAA, but no one came to pick them up so United just hung on to them. Unable to contend with this line of reasoning, I hung up.

Sunday, March 19
I called SAA's central baggage office as soon as it opened at 6 am. They confirmed that my bags had arrived in Johannesburg the previous afternoon and provided me the direct phone number for the local baggage services desk. That desk opened at 8 am, and I called it right away. The woman who answered confirmed that my bags were at the international baggage desk and said they'd get them to me some time that day. "Please," I pleaded, "I was supposed to get here on Thursday. Instead, I got here on Friday. I had to travel through an extra continent and go on two overnight flights instead of one. I'm at a business-dress conference wearing the same t-shirt and jeans for the fifth day in a row."

"Oh, we can't have that!" she replied.

"We do have that," I answered. "My conference ends at 3 pm today. Please. Help me get my bags."

"OK, here's what we'll do," she said. "I'll give you the direct number for the international baggage desk. We'll both call it until someone picks up, and we'll tell them to bring your bags down immediately."

"OK," I sighed. I called the number, which rang and rang, so I called back to the woman at the main baggage desk..

"I got them right away," she said, "and told them to bring your bags right over. I'm looking down the hall right now and I can see them bringing the bags. I'm going to send them to you straightaway. You'll have them before noon."

I went to my conference. Around 10:30, we got a break. I went to the lobby and the concierge pulled me aside. "Sir, your bags just got sent up to your room!"

I was so excited that I bolted upstairs and actually jumped up and down when I saw my bags waiting for me. They were intact, nothing damaged, and I made an executive decision: Screw punctuality, I'm going to shave. I shaved and changed into fresh clothes before going back to the conference. When I sat down at my table, the other four people in my group were startled. "I didn't even recognize you until you sat down!" one of them said.

As the conference ended, I stood to give DVT-prevention advice to the other conference participants. "First, an important announcement," I said. "My luggage arrived!" The whole room erupted in cheers.

The story actually does have a happy ending. My flight out of Johannesburg didn't leave until 9 pm Monday evening, so I went for a day-long safari at Pilanesberg National Park before going to the airport. It was amazing.

My trip home was uneventful.

If you boys and girls are very good (and interested), I'll share one final travel story: my trip with my wife to India, the UK, and France a few months ago. It's jacked up, too, but not as bad as the South Africa story.

You need to write a book

 

[HomeSkool]

You need to write a book..........

I think I just did. [emoji39]

Sent from my Pixel 2 using SDN mobile

 

[AsianPersuasion]

I had a horrible case of diarrhea on the day of the interview...my stomach was making horrible bowel sounds and thundering the whole time during the presentation. This gorgeous guy kept giving me dirty look the whole time cause he sat right next to me and heard the songs of my rocket ass stomach ready to take off.

 

[goatmed]

Interviewer: Do you have any habies?
Me: Excuse me?
Interviewer:...habies...?
Me: Habies?
Interviewer: Yea, things you like doing in your free time
Me: Oh, hobbies!
Couldn't have been a good impression.

 

[ekmf27050]

Wow, some of the stories in here are straight up crazy lol. I don't have anything like that but some weird things definitely happened in my interviews. In one of mine one of the other applicants had a nosebleed, and I said something dumb like "oh no, it must really suck to get that during an interview." Then literally later that same day, I was blowing my nose and felt something pop, and the tissue was instantly soaked with blood, so I had to run to the bathroom before it got on my nice clothes. Thank goodness I still had a few minutes until my next interview to clean myself up but that was pretty ironic.

In another interview, I stayed with a current student, though when I made the plans I was unaware I'd have to sleep on the floor of her tiny dorm room. As soon as I finished unpacking my stuff and being sad about my rough accommodations, the student said she had to Skype her boyfriend and I should go out and "explore the city" until she was done... aka she kicked me out. So I spent the evening before my interview wandering around Boston till I found a small art museum to hang out in until it closed.

And finally, one of my interviewers at a school was asking me a ton of ethics questions, starting from the relatively normal and finally ending up with weird gems like "What would be your reaction if you saw your mother's doctor getting drunk at a bar?" I was at a loss on how to answer and finally said it depended on what he was doing; if he was just minding his own business and wasn't doing surgery on my mom the next morning I would leave him alone bc its his own social life, but if he had to treat my mother soon or if he was being violent/rowdy I would tell my mom and/or report him somewhere. There was a long awkward pause and the interviewer said "Oh, so you wouldn't mind as long as he's a happy drunk?" and after a few more formalities basically just ended the interview right there.

That is literally the exact reason why I don't stay with student hosts.... That stinks!

Also, is it an unpopular opinion that doctors are also human beings? I don't think he should be puking in public or lose control of his extremities, but if my doctor wants to blow off steam at a bar I'd rather he do that then blow off steam at work 😱

 

[ekmf27050]

I think I just did. [emoji39]

Sent from my Pixel 2 using SDN mobile

..........

You have convinced all of us to avoid traveling with anyone who might be you 🤣

 

[ekmf27050]

I had a horrible case of diarrhea on the day of the interview...my stomach was making horrible bowel sounds and thundering the whole time during the presentation. This gorgeous guy kept giving me dirty look the whole time cause he sat right next to me and heard the songs of my rocket ass stomach ready to take off.

That is literally my nightmare bless your soul

 

[HomeSkool]

You have convinced all of us to avoid traveling with anyone who might be you 🤣..........

That is the end goal of my actions, yes. I'm trying to save you all.

 

[Goro]

Sorry to hijack the interview shenanigans thread to talk about my travel woes. In my defense, this is really cathartic for me.

Gather ye round for the tale of...

HomeSkool's Trip to South Africa.

I went to a non-medical conference in South Africa last March. In October, I went on Expedia and booked my air travel. I would fly on American Airlines to JFK, then South African Airways direct to Johannesburg, departing on Tuesday, March 14. (Yes, I'm going to name the airlines in this post. The dumb and the guilty deserve not protection.) My conference was to begin at 8 am on Friday, March 17.
.
December 6.
I received a call from Expedia telling me that my outbound flights were changing. American had bumped back the timing of my flight to JFK, which would make me miss my connection. To avoid this, Expedia changed my outbound itinerary to be a flight to Dulles with United, then a direct flight to Johannesburg with SAA. My layover in Washington would be just over two hours long. My return trip was unchanged.
.
Monday, March 13.
Every day, SAA has two flights go directly from Johannesburg to the US: one to JFK, the other to Dulles. A nor'easter was blowing across the eastern seaboard, and an SAA rep called me to say that neither of their inbound flights would be coming that day. That meant that there would be no airplane in either New York or Washington to take me to South Africa the following day. The rep moved my outbound itinerary back 24 hours.
.
Wednesday, March 15.
Normally, I pack a carry-on bag with a couple changes of clothes and my toiletries. In this case, people attending my conference had been asked to donate items to the Soweto Red Cross, so I filled my smaller suitcase with brand new towels and packed all my personal effects in my larger one. I planned to check both bags.

I drove 90 minutes to my departure airport and took the shuttle in from long-term parking. I carry a knife in my pocket (a habit I picked up in Basic), and I didn't realize it was still there until I got to the terminal. I proactively alerted TSA (with my hands in plain view, of course). It turns out they now allow you mail such things back to yourself.

Once I arrived at my gate, I waited. My flight was significantly delayed. The United reps announced that Dulles was only operating one runway due to the weather, which meant we couldn't take off because there was nowhere for us to land (they had to space out arrivals). We eventually got off the ground about two hours late. Then we spun donuts in the sky over Virginia for twenty minutes before we could land. Once we got on the ground, I bolted to the monitors and saw that my connecting flight was in the next terminal. I texted my friends, telling them I was on the ground and asking them to tell the SAA people not to close the aircraft door. They passed the message on. I was down at the end of the terminal, so I sprinted to the terminal's midpoint to get on the interterminal shuttle. Then I sprinted all the way down the next terminal to get to my gate. I arrived just as they closed the door. They refused to let me on the flight. I begged and pleaded, but they were unmoved.

I made my way to the United customer service desk. The woman behind the desk was very sweet, the brightest spot in this whole sordid affair. She rebooked me on the route that would get me to Johannesburg the very fastest. My new itinerary had me flying to Frankfurt on United at 11 pm that night (it was 6 pm at the time), then having an all-day layover, and then flying with SAA to Johannesburg, arriving around 8 am on Friday. She sent a message to the baggage handlers informing them of my changed itinerary. I made my way to my new gate and waited. The flight to Frankfurt was uneventful.
.
Thursday, March 16.
Upon arriving in Frankfurt, I decided that I really deserved a massage at one of the in-airport spas. Then I got some food and wandered a bit. I found that they have showers there, so I went to pull a little cash from the ATM. The smallest note available was €10. The shower cost €6. The girl at the counter couldn't make change. FML.

I spent the rest of the day waiting for my 9 pm flight to South Africa. We got off the ground on time. No one was in the seat next to me, so I curled up and tried to sleep. Some time after midnight, I managed to fall asleep, but at 1 am a flight attendant started talking over the PA system. Why are they yelling at us? I thought. Then I realized what they were saying. Oh, they're asking for a doctor. (pause) Oh. A doctor. That means me. Dammit. I got up and found a flight attendant. Another passenger had syncopized (likely dehydration with a vasovagal component). A UK-trained physician also responded, and we tag-teamed a quick in-flight workup. The flight attendants asked us if the captain needed to do an emergency landing. "Aren't we over Libya right now?" I asked the other doctor. "Yes," she replied. "Then regardless of this patient's status, the answer is no, don't land. It's better that one patient should perish than that we all should get killed," I said. But the patient was OK.

Friday, March 17
I landed in Johannesburg at 8:15 am and proceeded through the passport check and on to the baggage claim. By 9 am, I realized my bags hadn't made it, so I went to file a claim. The agent looked them up and found they were still at Dulles. I wanted to cry. He said they'd go out on that night's nonstop flight to Johannesburg, arriving at 4:45 pm local time on Saturday.

I took a cab to the hotel and got in to the conference. Everyone else was in business casual dress. The only clothing I had was the t-shirt and jeans I'd been wearing since Wednesday morning. My conference was too jam-packed to allow time to shop for new clothes. That night, I took a shower and washed my t-shirt, underwear, and socks with hand soap. I hung up my shirt and socks to dry, and I used a blow dryer on my underwear until it was warm (but still completely wet) before putting it on and going to bed.

Saturday, March 18
I went to my conference wearing the same t-shirt and jeans. By the afternoon, I was famous among the 150 or so attendees. People kept coming up to me on breaks and saying, "I heard what happened. Is that for real?"

The plane that was supposed to have my luggage arrived that afternoon, but the airline's bag tracking website didn't update. I tried in vain to find a phone number for the local SAA baggage office, but all I could find was their central baggage desk. I called. They were closed. So I called United. I asked for an update on my bags and the representative said he couldn't provide one since they'd been handed off to another airline. I responded that I had checked my bags with United and it was therefore United's obligation to make sure I received them. His response was an extremely polite version of "eff you, lolz." I asked why United hadn't sent my bags on the United flight to Frankfurt. He answered that they had tried to hand my bags off to SAA, but no one came to pick them up so United just hung on to them. Unable to contend with this line of reasoning, I hung up.

Sunday, March 19
I called SAA's central baggage office as soon as it opened at 6 am. They confirmed that my bags had arrived in Johannesburg the previous afternoon and provided me the direct phone number for the local baggage services desk. That desk opened at 8 am, and I called it right away. The woman who answered confirmed that my bags were at the international baggage desk and said they'd get them to me some time that day. "Please," I pleaded, "I was supposed to get here on Thursday. Instead, I got here on Friday. I had to travel through an extra continent and go on two overnight flights instead of one. I'm at a business-dress conference wearing the same t-shirt and jeans for the fifth day in a row."

"Oh, we can't have that!" she replied.

"We do have that," I answered. "My conference ends at 3 pm today. Please. Help me get my bags."

"OK, here's what we'll do," she said. "I'll give you the direct number for the international baggage desk. We'll both call it until someone picks up, and we'll tell them to bring your bags down immediately."

"OK," I sighed. I called the number, which rang and rang, so I called back to the woman at the main baggage desk..

"I got them right away," she said, "and told them to bring your bags right over. I'm looking down the hall right now and I can see them bringing the bags. I'm going to send them to you straightaway. You'll have them before noon."

I went to my conference. Around 10:30, we got a break. I went to the lobby and the concierge pulled me aside. "Sir, your bags just got sent up to your room!"

I was so excited that I bolted upstairs and actually jumped up and down when I saw my bags waiting for me. They were intact, nothing damaged, and I made an executive decision: Screw punctuality, I'm going to shave. I shaved and changed into fresh clothes before going back to the conference. When I sat down at my table, the other four people in my group were startled. "I didn't even recognize you until you sat down!" one of them said.

As the conference ended, I stood to give DVT-prevention advice to the other conference participants. "First, an important announcement," I said. "My luggage arrived!" The whole room erupted in cheers.

The story actually does have a happy ending. My flight out of Johannesburg didn't leave until 9 pm Monday evening, so I went for a day-long safari at Pilanesberg National Park before going to the airport. It was amazing.

My trip home was uneventful.

If you boys and girls are very good (and interested), I'll share one final travel story: my trip with my wife to India, the UK, and France a few months ago. It's jacked up, too, but not as bad as the South Africa story.

This HAS to be stickied!
I swear, HomeSkool is our funniest SDNer.
👍👍😍😍

 

[ekmf27050]

This HAS to be stickied!
I swear, HomeSkool is our funniest SDNer.
👍👍😍😍
..........

And, I imagine, king of "one-upping" whenever anyone in a bar complains about travel (and rightfully so)

 

[HomeSkool]

And, I imagine, king of "one-upping" whenever anyone in a bar complains about travel (and rightfully so) ..........

I save the South Africa story for very special occasions. Wedding speeches, for example, and Grand Rounds.

 

[SpoiledMilk]

This HAS to be stickied!
I swear, HomeSkool is our funniest SDNer.
👍👍😍😍
..........

Dang! Initially saw how long it was and stopped after the 3rd sentence...

Now I gotta read it....