DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend of four years, "Taylor," and I are opposites in that I like to be on time and he is generally late. We usually work this out by leaving for an event I choose at the time I want, and leave for his friends' gatherings when he wants.
My problem is leaving for the airport when we travel together. We use public transportation, which takes 45 minutes, but things can go wrong and make it longer.
Taylor would like to leave so we arrive at the airport 45 minutes before our flights. This causes me a lot of stress because security lines can be long and I'm afraid of missing our plane. We have had to run through airports in order to avoid being left behind.
I'd like to be at the airport an hour and a half before flight time to be safe. Taylor hates waiting in the terminal when security is light and thinks we could be doing other things with our time. Please save me from our next argument and tell us who is right. -- FRAZZLED TRAVELER IN SAN FRANCISCO
DEAR FRAZZLED: You are. Better to be safe than sorry, especially when you have nonrefundable tickets. I have been on flights when seats were given to standby passengers because the ticketed passenger was held up for some reason. There are worse things than having to kill a half-hour at the airport. Missing your flight is one of them.