There was a Girl Scout troop from Iowa in front of me, some German teenagers, all with luggage the size of Montana and giant backpacks slapping you in the face, a woman with a twin baby carriage, and dozens of grumpy passengers, inching their bags forward a few inches at a time, all without that first cup of joe like me, waiting impatiently for the line to move.

There were at least a dozen agents at the counter, three of whom were devoted to the "VIP Check-In." They were laughing and chatting with some guy with long hair in a pony tail and sandals. I figured he was one of those Hollywood types. Two more agents were hovering at stations that said "Closed," slurping on some coffee. Three spots actually said "Open." There was also a uniformed person at the front with a clipboard.

It was now 655 and I had moved 20 feet. The Germans and the Boy Scouts were still in front of me. I noticed the guy with the pony tail was still shooting the breeze with the VIP crew. They were now down to two open stations. I began to panic slightly.

"I'm on that 745 flight to O'Hare," I said to the lady with the clipboard. "Any chance I will make it?"

"Don't worry sir, we will call you."

Right. Of course, she never did, although she did gather all the passengers for the 830 flight to Denver and wisked them off to the ticket counter.

Finally at 725 I got there. The name tag said "J. Norman, trainee."

"Name is L-E-V-I-T-T. I'm on the 745 to O'Hare."

There was silence while her fingers typed away on the keyboard. It seemed like she was typing the whole Unabomber's Manifesto [oh! oh! can't mention the word "bomb."] when finally she said she couldn't find any record of my name.

"But I called your 800 number yesterday and made the reservation myself!"

"I'm sorry, sir, I can offer you a ticket on our 1100 AM flight, with a stopover in Pittsburgh, arriving O'Hare at...ummm, let's see...300 PM local time, or I can put you on standby."

"But I have a 900 AM meeting in the Loop!!!"

"Well, you can try another airline or I can put you on standby for the 745."

"I'll go with the standby."

By now it was 730 and I was running as fast as my legs would carry me towards the security check-in. There was one lane open. The Germans and the lady with the twin baby carriage were in front of me.

I guess they had the sensitivity set to "max" because everybody set off the alarm as they went through the detector, including me.

"Put your computer on the table and turn it on, sir," the security guard barked as I emerged on the other side, with brief case and newspaper in hand.

"Look, I gotta make that 745 or I'm cooked, I said." That was a mistake.

"Let me see the brief case, sir, and turn on the computer now!" she yelled. I was attracting quite a crowd. Two more security guards had gathered at the table. I turned on the laptop, feeling some comfort as the familiar Windows 98 logo appeared on the screen. I was almost half expecting the plans to the Pentagon's communications center to appear next, but fortunately the Win 98 desktop with a few boring icons for "Word" and "E-mail" were all that was there. I noticed they were going through my brief case, item by item. My emergency change of underwear, my floppies, and some papers were on the table.

"Put this computer disk in the computer and open it up now," some guy with a coffee stain on his shirt was demanding.

It was my Weekly Lampoonery column about the people who got to flush the 1000 toilets at Raven's Stadium last week in Baltimore. I didn't think they were actually going to read it.

"Hey, Frank, come over here and read this," said the guy with the coffee stain to another who needed a shave badly.

"Geez, this is pretty damn funny. Did they really do this," said the five o'clock shadow?"

"Guys, I appreciate your literary taste, and I'm very flattered, but I don't want to miss my 745 to O'Hare."

"Oh, that's been delayed; severe weather over Toledo."

I finally got to the gate, where I found an angry mob of passengers and, the Boy Scouts. The sign for flight 2117 said "Delayed." I took my place in line. It was now 800AM. Fortunately, I had called Chicago and they had agreed to meet in the afternoon.

"I'm on standby," I said to the agent, who reminded me vaguely of Monica Lewinsky. "I really need to be on that plane."

"We will call you after we seat all the other passengers," said Monica. "The flight will be leaving any time now."

I sat down next to the Boy Scouts and decided to play with my computer while I waited for an announcement. Of course, no announcements were made. Passengers circulated rumors among themselves, some pretty interesting, like the one about O'Hare being shut down all day because of a hazmat spill, or the one about the pilot who had to be replaced because he was "slightly inebriated." Finally, at 1000 came the announcement: "Flight 2117 will shortly begin boarding our VIP Club passengers, our Gold Club card holders, our Platinum Club members, and our Mile-High Club passengers."

Hundreds of us hovered near the gate while a dozen snooty passengers took their time walking to the gangway. The guy with the pony tail must have been in the lounge having a guava juice.

"We will now be boarding unnaccompanied chilren,those needing special assistance or those needing a little extra time." The lady with the twin baby carriage emerged from the crowd, which, by now was getting mighty unruly. I noticed that Monica had left the counter and was escorting the twin mom to the gate, pausing to coo at the babies and play with some obnoxious plastic rattle.

"We will begin general boarding in a few minutes. We will be boarding from the rear of the aircraft first. Please have your tickets available for the flight attendant at the gate."

By now, the crowd was getting downright ugly. Even the Boy Scouts were using language that would have made Monica blush. I was beginning to think I would never get to Chicago. It was 1020. Fifteen minutes later the waiting room was empty, except for a half dozen pacing around nervously like myself, all standbys, I assumed.

"Mr. E. Aliparnopolous, please come to the ticket counter."

We all looked at each other. No one moved.

"Mr. E. Aliparnopolous, please come to the ticket counter."

Still, there was no response. "OK, he's not here. Call the next one," shouted some guy with a mean-looking goatee. "Mr. S. Wesbury, please come to the ticket counter."

The guy with the goatee came forward, sneering ever so slightly at the five of us who were left.

"Mr. P. Barney, please come to the ticket counter."

There was a stir as some portly gentleman with a huge wardrobe bag came forward.

"You will have to check that bag, sir, said Monica, who was now back at the counter." The rest of us took a collective breath and held it. Was there going to be any more room on the plane?

Ten minutes had elapsed since Mr Barney's bag had been checked. There had been no more calls. Monica had run back and forth to the gate twice, but I couldn't hear what she was saying.

"Mr. T. Hickey, please come to the ticket counter."

There were now three of us left as a youthful dude, carrying a skateboard, pushed forward towards the gate. I had that sinking feeling now as I looked at the short, chubby guy on my right and the man with a cane on my left. The chubby guy asked Monica how many seats were left. "One" came the answer.

We looked at each other and shook our heads. I braced myself for the news. My competitive juices were flowing now. I had to get that last seat; I didn't care how.

Suddenly the guy with the cane turned to us and said: "Look, I'm in no rush; I'm going on vacation. You guys look like you're in a hurry. I'll be glad to take a later flight."

"Very kind of you, bud," said the chubby guy, while looking at me suspiciously.

"Yeah, thanks," I said, keeping my eye on chubbo as well. "Mr. A. Ross, please come to the ticket counter." It was the guy with the cane.

As he moved towards the counter, the chubby guy pushed in front of him.

"I thought you agreed to go on a later flight, pal."

Monica was stamping citizen cane's boarding pass. Chubby looked at me and I looked at chubby. "I want dibs on the 1100 flight," I shouted, as chubby literally pushed me aside on the way to the counter.

"We have one more seat available on this one," said Monica. "Since you're here, Mr. James, I'll stamp your ticket."

"What? I was here, too."

"I'm sorry, sir, we'll get you on that 11:00."

Chubby broke into a full-dress sneer as he made his way down the gangway. I found myself wishing evil thoughts on him. Like maybe he has to sit next to a Boy Scout with acne and a cough.

"Which gate does the 1100 leave from?" I asked.

"The next gate over, sir, 34A. You will have to hurry."

Finally, as I took my seat next to two nuns, in the very last row of the plane, I glanced out the window at flight 2117. They were unloading the bags and the passengers onto the flightline. I offered chubby my very best wave as I saw him emerge. He smiled back. At that instant we realized we were merely playing the airline travel game.

"Just another day in the life of an airline passenger," I thought, as I glanced at Sister Mary in the seat next to me.

"Did you have a nice stay in the Washington area?" I asked, trying to strike up a conversation.

"Yes, even got invited to that new football stadium in Baltimore. Do you know they actually paid us to eat and watch a whole game? We had a blast. Seems some guy in Washington gave them the idea for the whole thing on the Internet."