I was taking the red-eye from LA back to the east coast. Two lay-overs but the plane for the second leg was almost empty so that was great.
Arrived on time, so it was maybe 8 am or so. Turns out, however, that while I was enjoying nice weather in Santa Monica, an ice storm had hit my home state. I honestly had no idea until I got to the parking lot, which was iced over. Took me forever to inch my way over the ice back to my car, which was a long ways away from the shuttle drop-off.
My car would not start.
I slowly inched my way over to the gate-guard, who gives me one of those portable chargers. I return to my car, thankful they have those ready to go, only to find out my battery is totally dead and won't take a charge. I return the charger. The guard just kind of shrugs when I ask if he has any suggestions and tells me to try at the help desk inside.
I'm completely frozen by this point so that sounds great. I get back on the shuttle and return to the airport. After talking to several people, I find a guy who drives a shuttle into the city who offers to take me somewhere to buy a battery after he drops off everyone on his route. That takes forever, as he has to go all over town, but it's still awesome and I was very thankful.
I finally get back to the airport, then back to my car, get the battery installed, and, cats be praised, it starts up. That's when I remember that I haven't done more than dozed a bit on the plane in more than 30 hours and I still had a four hour drive in bad conditions. The airport ordeal had taken several hours. I had to stop at a McDonalds and take a tiny nap in my car about half-way back. When I finally reached my house, I left my luggage in the car and went right to bed, where I slept for like 12 hours.
