Heading home from Outdoor Retailer a month or so ago, I was raving about electronic boarding passes. I had heard about this concept, but I had not been privy to it, until this trip. These electronic boarding passes are only available from some airlines, in some airports. News articles predict that by 2014, as many as 15 billion people will be using electronic boarding passes. And now I was getting to try ‘em out. Feeling very technologically savvy, I headed right past the kiosk where the masses were waiting to print boarding passes. I jumped into the security line, waited to scan my phone, and felt like a big deal. The scanner worked perfectly, I made it through security and scanned my phone again to board my plane moments later. Smooth sailing.

And then there was the next trip. Flying home from a quick trip to Seattle, I had the privilege of using the electronic boarding pass system again. Leaving Seattle, with my boarding pass on my phone, feeling very confident in my skills, I breezed past the kiosks, and jumped right into the security line. This line was long. Long enough that it took forty minutes to get ten people away from the man in the blue shirt who would open the gates to freedom. I was almost there.

And then the world turned black.

I looked down at my phone, preparing to pull up my boarding pass. And I had the hourglass of death. The screen was white. Panic was setting in. My heart was racing. After a few moments of not breathing, hourglass spinning, my phone shuts off. And will not turn on again. Total panic has set in.

Traveling alone, I realize I have to jump out of line, run back to the kiosks (the very same ones I looked down upon an hour ago), print my boarding passes and get through security, all within the next half an hour. And so as I cursed my phone, and joined the masses, typing in my frequent flyer number in record speed, I’m ran back to the security line. A very friendly TSA agent senses my distress (I’m holding my phone, shaking my head, with a deer-in-the-headlight look, and he knows... this isn’t his first rodeo) and helps get me through an unbelievably long security line (the line had somehow doubled in the time I was gone).

I clear security. I run. I’m the last person on the plane, but I made it.

I now have a new phone. And it seems to be working just fine. I want to use the electronic boarding passes again, though I may just print my boarding passes too. You know, just incase.