That’s a no brainer, but seriously, don’t do it. This is nothing to be proud of, but where better than to humiliate yourself than on the intertubes, for all to see. Jenna and I have missed our flight three times now. Three! How is that possible? Border crossings, traffic, parking trouble, but most of all, we only have ourselves to blame. Here’s what transpired and the result:

• Flying to Lima, Peru, via Houston from Detroit with Continental: it took an hour to park the car and get to the terminal. Missed our flight to Houston by 10 minutes. The very kind people of SkyTeam put us on a Northwest flight to Houston that left 20 min later and we caught our connection to Lima.
• Flying to Oslo, Norway, via Detroit and Amsterdam with Northwest. We were just late. Checked in 30 min before the flight, security took an eternity. I arrived at the gate 5 min before it was supposed to leave. They wouldn’t let me on, said there was nothing they could do. I pleaded with them. They did some computer wizardry. Then they said, “go, board the airplane. Just go!”. And we did.
• Flying to Tampa, Florida, via Atlanta with Delta. The border in Buffalo took forever and parking too. Missed check in by 5 min. Ran for the gate, with our luggage, but the people there would not do the same wizardry as last time. Flight missed. We rebooked our flight for $50 each and it took 7 hours longer and a lot of stress to get to Florida.

Need I say that this will never happen again?