Running burned and blind

I think I finally figured out what made OJ allegedly kill those folks.

It was running through airports.

Which is exactly what I had to do Sunday evening at Dulles. I had a scheduled layover of 38 minutes, so there was no way I could deal with a late arriving flight. My first flight arrived 2 minutes early, and I had hopes that my connecting concourse would be my arrival concourse (or very close by).  And the early arrival meant so far, so good. However, no ramp at the plane meant a wait of 12 minutes. While waiting to get off the plane, I overhear a flight attendant say, "We need to move these people, someone is going to Allentown at Gate A5."

GATE A? But we landed at Gate D! I would need another plane to get over to A.

Off the plane, 28 minutes to go. There are no flight boards when I get in the terminal, so I take it on faith that I am heading to the right gate. I start walking very quickly, like those Olympic race walkers, following the arrows for Gate A. I start to jog for what seems like 5 minutes. Down an escalator. Up stairs. See a sign for a shuttle bus to Gate A. Clock on bus says next bus departing in 2:38. Time: 15 minutes to departure. Bus finally leaves, arrives somewhere, but not Gate A. Silly me, I think a shuttle bus to Gate A should take you there but no, it's into another long corridor, down an escalator, up stairs, down another escalator to a "train to Gate A." This one leaves in 60 seconds.

Holy crap. This is crazy. 10 minutes to go. Train leaves, and actually goes pretty fast. Get off train. 7 minutes to go. Start to sprint, or least as much of a sprint as I am able to do. Gate A5 in sight. No one there except the gate agent. She looks up at me surprised and says "Where are you going?" I tell her, with 4 minutes to go. She says, "oh no. I just closed that flight," which I can see sitting on the tarmac with propellers propelling.

She calls out to the plane, can we get him on? Two other employees with walkie-talkies converse for a few seconds and wave me out. Another employee leads me through the gate, grabs my arm and jogs with me across the tarmac to the plane, telling me to hurry.

I walk up the ramp at exactly the departure time. I sit down and exhale. This is as close to a decathlon as I will ever attempt.

And then plane sits for 15 minutes before moving.

That's the kind of stuff that drove O.J. to do it. Allegedly.