It’s 9pm in San Francisco–12am the next day for my East-coast internal clock, but feels like it could be the year 2100 for my frayed nerves I’ve been waiting in this damn line for so long.

The United customer service agent at the counter in front of me is expounding on his life experiences. “Let me tell you,” he tells you, you being the tired, irate traveler in front of me, “I’ve worked with this airline for 15 years, and whenever I go on standby for a flight blah blah blah blah…”

I don’t need to finish listening to know that he didn’t even come close to answering the man’s question. And watching the questioner’s eyes gradually open wide, his arms throw up in exasperation, and his feet stomp off in the middle of the service rep’s sentence, I nod ruefully. The line is 10 people long, and this jabbering penguin has spent 5 minutes giving off-topic life-ruminations to each person. I’ve been waiting for over half an hour.

Thank god, another service rep walks up to the counter with a grumpy swagger. He looks taciturn. Efficient. Motions for me to come over. Everything is a blur. I don’t hear what’s going on around me, only the sound of Shostakovich’s 7th string quartet. It’s going into that furious part in the third movement after the adagio for his dead first wife and starts to become dissonant, angry, sublime. How I feel while traveling.

I turn off my Ipod and go up to the counter.

“Hi, I lost my wallet on flight 975 from Dulles. Can you help me find it?”

He can’t, apparently. The plane’s left the gate, I can only file a claim with baggage services. That was efficient. 1 minute response, after a 36 minute wait.

I walk what seems like half a mile to baggage claim, on the way stopping at a diner to order a bacon cheeseburger, fries, and a milkshake.

“Will you be paying with cash or card?” asks the helpful cashier.

“Oh fuck,” I say, patting my empty pockets, “Sorry.”

I walk away cursing some more. The only food I’ve had all day are some leftover lentils and a $9 turkey sandwich on the flight. Only $1 goes toward the ingredients. The other $8 pays for the special motivating power and energy that only an unsatisfying meal brings.

The baggage claim lady could use some of that motivating power. She’s friendly but no more efficient than the United man. I file a lost and found claim, after waiting in line and having someone else cut in front of me. Being an only child teaches you nothing about how to get attention. I resolve to cry loudly in public more often for the Chinese New Year.

I should explain. I’m in SFO (that’s San Francisco International airport for you newbs who weren’t paying attention during “Up in the Air”). I’m trying to get to my hotel so I can get a good night’s sleep for my PhD candidate interviews at UCSF tomorrow. I was supposed to be here 10 hours ago (and out at a dinner with the other young hot people–er, scientists–right now) but a 10,000 ton pillow of coagulated fluffy ice crystals rolled off God’s bed onto our nation’s capital, compounding some poor infrastructural decisions made in the 70′s and creating one giant freezing-melting clusterfuck of a travel itinerary for me and a couple thousand other people.

Earlier this afternoon I flagged down a cab, the first brave driver after 3 cowards, to get me from the outer reaches of the Washington DC metro system to Dulles airport. I made it to the gate with 10 minutes to spare. But not before, as it now seems, leaving my wallet at the security checkpoint.

This is now a problem, because I need money to get from the airport to the hotel. Even the least expensive option–printing out a shuttle voucher that UCSF sent me weeks ago but I never remembered (or was able to go to the office) to print–costs $6 at the airport. Paper is expensive these days.

“I need your help, man,” I say to the cashier at the airport travel agency, where the only printer in the entire airport lives. “There’s no other way I can get out of here.”

He looks at me, hesitates. “Sorry man, I’m a nice guy, but this would get me in trouble.”

I try to smile and look charming, managing not much more than a worried grimace. I offer him some Ritter sport alpine milk chocolate bars. “Look, they’re made with real milk from the Alps.”

He doesn’t take candy from strangers.

But he gives in, because he’s a nice guy. I keep the chocolate. I promise to come back with the cash on my way out of the city. We talk about video games.

I make it to the hotel, but by this point I have half a mind to throw the rest of my belongings out the 6th-floor window, including the clothes I currently have on, and walk natural and naked into the balmy North Californian winter.

But I’m too tired. So I will only say this: always get window seats. Because you don’t know the next time you’ll find yourself in a gorgeous midwinter sunset over an expansive exurban airport, one of those rare moments once a year when the wind and water vapor conspire to form a perfect arrangement of prussian blue clouds against a buttermilk and tangerine sky, only to realize you’re 4 seats away from the window in both directions and there’s nothing you can do except hold your Canon snapshot (which you’ve hacked just for the occasion) and whimper softly the words “Flickr” and “opportunity”.

Always get window seats. And always, always carry enough cash in a secure place for a cheeseburger and milkshake. Good night.