Trudeau's Law

My return from DC was a bit of a gong show. The flight from DC to Montreal was somewhat interesting. I'm convinced my pilot was drunk. The plane was bouncing up and down, and shaking from side to side, and there wasn't much cloud cover. And twice, it felt like the pilot literally slammed on the breaks. It was like he was thinking, 'oh shit, I supposed to start my descent better slow this plane down.' The second time, I think he just about overshot Trudeau Airport!



Just to give you some background, I have never re-entered Canada through any airport other than YVR. So for the first time in my life I had to clear customs, pick up my luggage, drop it off, clear security again, and finally get on the plane.



When I entered the customs hall the first thing that went through my mind was Oh Shit! I have never see line-ups like it before, but I had no choice and I ventured down the stairs (it's the same layout as YVR). I saw there was a special line for connecting flights, that pretty much took me to the front of the line-up. Next problem: there were only a couple of people in front of me, but I don't think they were Canadian, and the custom officers kept asking tonnes of questions. So I started to panic again. I had about 90 minutes to make my flight. Finally it's my turn, the customs officer scans my passport, and boom, his computer crashes. He's frantically trying to reboot, and I can't go anywhere until it's working again. So he asked me the usual questions, and we got to chatting. He felt really bad and embarrassed about the whole thing. Finally, it started working and I could continue on.



Of course my bag was already on the carousel, so I grabbed it, handed in my customs card, dropped my bag off - the easiest part of the process, and headed to my gate, with ample time. Get to security... you can guess where this is going. Massive line-up, chaos, etc. But the line is moving, so I keep calm. Of course they stick me in the worst possible line-up. There was a woman with two small children who was trying to smuggle something through. So security pulled her aside, but it takes a few minutes before they send a new guard to our line-up.



The woman in front of me starts telling me how she's missed a few flights due to Montreal security... perhaps it wasn't the airport's fault though... the guards repeatedly told us to take all liquids out of our bag and make sure they're in the little baggie, etc. This woman WAITS until she is about to put her bag through, and then begins to pull out all her liquids and shove them in a bag. I had few choice words for her, but thought it best to keep my mouth closed.

Of course, my gate was at the very end of the hall. I couldn't even see it when I first passed through security. Let's just say I got my exercise. Finally I made it some time to spare - my flight was delayed!

And that's Trudeau's, err, I mean, Murphy's Law.