Pittsburgh International Airport: WIN

It's a 15 minute drive.

Parking is cheap.

It's beautiful inside.  Quiet.  Almost too quiet for an airport.

Not once have I encountered THAT cop - come on Chicago, you know the kind.  Those at Midway and O'Hare who yell and scream at you to keep moving as you drive up to Arrivals to collect your peeps, thus forcing you to drive around again even if you spot your party at the exit door struggling with their luggage.

No, this is the Pittsburgh International Airport.  Do you know it?

The one, where a TSA official will walk your husband to a mailing kiosk to mail home the Leatherman tool that he told you, his wife, he had removed from his bag before heading to the airport.

TSA:  "Sir, is this your bag?"

Wife: "Geez, George, you just lost another Leatherman.  I'm not buying you another one."

TSA:  "No way.  This is too nice to pitch.  Let's get this mailed home for you."

Wife:  (Silence.  Jaw dropped.  I know, crazy, right?)

The one, where that same TSA official will then escort your husband back through security past all the other people standing in line.

It has the best customer service I've ever experienced in an airport.  Oh, yes it does.

See, when you inadevertantly leave your dog-sitter with the key to the church, rather than your home, causing her to have to crawl in your back window, which, thankfully, hadn't been locked like every other window, you need someone like the American Airline attendant who sealed it in an envelope and ran it from the gate back down to the ticket counter for pick-up by a very good friend, who then delivered it to the dog sitter.

Phew.  Catch that?

Yes, while going through security, with a sharp object and a highly suspicious kid wearing a cast who had to be placed in the glass box until she could be cleared, the phone rang alerting us that we had locked our dog-sitter out of the house.

As we  brainstormed fought about the situation (how could you give her the wrong key?), my husband came up with the brilliant idea of mailing the key back to the house.  Ok, but it was Saturday.  The key would arrive Monday - the day we got home.

Until, brilliance.  George informed the attendant at the gate that this was an emergency, and that attendant took the key and personally delivered it to the ticket counter until it could be retrieved.

I don't think that would happen at a larger airport.  Plus, I'd never ask a friend to just take a quick jaunt over to O'Hare to pick up a key - for such a thing doesn't exist.  That quick jaunt could take up to an hour - both ways - even though we live just about the same distance to PIT as we once did to ORD.

Had we been at Midway?  Forget it.  The dog would survive from Saturday-Monday.  She's a dog.

My carpet?

Not so much.  Would have been a great excuse to finally rip it up and get that hard wood floor.

Pittsburgh International Airport:  Epic WIN.

Thanks.

For more Atkins Airport Fun, read this old post from 2008.