40 minutes: bed to plane

As some of you may know, I recently took a trip to Bloomington, Indiana to experience the greatest college weekend ... the Little 500 bike race. While the race and the visit in B-town were fun and exciting and a great time visiting with old friends, that's not the topic of this post. At the moment, I'd like to share with you all the tale of getting to Bloomington.
I had planned to fly out of Minnesota on Friday morning at 6am. This would, theoretically enable me to get into town in time to have lunch with my former co-workers and get to the women's race by 4:00 pm. My plan was to get up at 3:15 am to catch the bus and train that would take me to the airport, arriving around 5am, plenty of time to get to the gate and make a last minute potty stop. I have to believe that this plan would have worked brilliantly had it not been for one tiny detail: I set my alarm for 3:15 am, but I did not turn it on. So instead of getting up at the appointed time, I awoke at 5:01 am. It took me about 5 seconds to realize what was going on. Then it took another 2 seconds to realize that I needed to kick it into serious high gear! I was able to roust my friend Chris, who thankfully does not live far from my apartment, to come drive me to the airport, which is also thankfully not too far from my apartment. I was heading out the door at 5:13 am. I was racing out of the car into the airport at 5:29 am. 31 minutes before the plane was scheduled to have lift-off.
It was at this point that I realized that the huge long line I saw upon entering the terminal a was not, as I had hoped, the line for ticketing (I had thankfully printed off my boarding pass before arriving), but was in fact the line to get through security. Crap. Another 2 seconds and I realized that there was no way I was going to have made it this far only to miss the plane because of a line. So I plucked up my courage and started from the end of the line, one by one, politely requesting to go ahead of each person. I got within about 6 people from the front and was denied passing, but at that point I needed time to untie my shoes and remove my coat in preparation for the scanners anyway. I arrived at the gate and got right into line. And by 5:41 am, a mere 40 minutes after I'd gotten out of my bed, I was sitting in my seat on a plane that would eventually take me to Indiana.
Now, the fact that the plane did not leave for another 50 minutes is a detail that can be ignored at the moment. I like to revel in the fact that I was able to get it together enough to make my plane, even if it was primarily motivated by the fact that I'd be out a considerable chunk of change if I missed the flight.

"Aww yeah, I made it here baby!"