South Carolina Comic Con— or SCCC for you hepcats— is held each year in Greenville South Carolina, and if you want to visit a medium city that is absolutely beautiful and free of all the nonsense that places like Portland Oregon are over-run with then check out Greenville. We’re actually looking at houses down there we liked it so much.
Mother Nature played a funny trick on us and buried us with a small but painful snowstorm on the Wednesday/Thursday before the show, which meant we flew down Friday afternoon and ended up landing in Greenville at Midnight. Rob and Michele the promoters are possibly the greatest people on the Earth— I love them both. They worked very hard to make our travel as easy as possible. Flying out of Worcester (which we had just done twice to Orlando) was out of the question because we’d have to have TWO connecting flights to do it— so we opted for Boston/Logan which is actually an easy 40 minute ride for us— but its when you get there that things go South— they have intensive security and bomb sniffing dogs and since my trunk often has recently transported large firearms there is more often than not gun powder residue that them there dogs go crazy for— so it makes for an extended check in.
Instead we opted to leave the car at Logan Express and take the bus in from Framingham— normally a really easy experience, this time around the bus was PACKED and there were several people yapping away on their phones which just adds to the fun.
Bus arrived at Logan and we made it through security (TSA Precheck) in no time— Veronica got pulled out of line— and I laughed at her, but it turned out it was my dop-kit that had an old timey razor in it that caused her to get flagged— so I stepped in and explained the situation and soon we were on our way.
We flew American Airlines First Class to Reagan in Washington, which is a very short flight but they still managed to make us some coffee and take good care of us.
We had a pretty long layover at Reagan so we grabbed a bite to eat and enjoyed ourselves while we waited— but the flight which was set to take off at 10:15pm kept getting delayed and then moved from gate to gate. I should have been more concerned but I fly a fair amount and seldom have a problem. That was about to change.
After a while they finally settled on a plane and a gate and we landed in Greenville at Midnight— which was about on time. We got down to baggage claim and while Veronica waited I ran a quick errand— she texted me and said “We aren’t getting our bag.” To which I replied “ha.”
As I walked back to baggage claim I noticed a person in an American Airlines vest standing in the middle of a circle of my fellow passengers— this didn’t look good.
Turns out— when they switched planes they forgot to get the bags off. So NOBODY had their luggage. THIS is why people travel with everything they own as they get on a plane. I’m a carry a single briefcase on kind of guy— but if this happens to you enough I can see why you become one of THEM.
That meant that we had no clothes, but just as bad we had no art to sell at the show, and no art supplies to do commissions— so we’d essentially be sitting there looking blank.
The AA Worker was no help— not only did they not apologize, they didn’t seem to care. The bags would be there “tomorrow” around 4pm they said, we can just come back for them. There was one guy there that was 75 miles away— I don’t think I would have been too happy.
Since I misssed the initial conversation I pretty much stood there in disbelief and then decided we’d just figure it out. The con would certainly help us out however they could and we needed to find our ride outside— the show sets up car service for us to and from the airport and to and from the hotel to the show— this is all the guests so it’s a lot of work for them, and we certainly appreciate it.
Part Two Tomorrow.