In April I arrived at check-in 29 minutes before departure from DWF to ORD. This was a 6:00 am flight and swear it was 5:31 or 5:32 am. I HAD to check a bag because I had an aluminum softball bat I couldn't carry on. The gate agent wouldn't let me check my bag and I had to wait and fly standby... the kicker was that my gate was less than 20 yards from the check-in... I was polite for about a minute, then got a little irritated. It was EMPTY in the airport, they hadn't even started boarding the flight, there was NO ONE else behind me in line, but this woman had no interest whatsoever in helping me out. This was on AA.

In the overall scheme, a rule is a rule, and maybe there was nothing she could do, but I would like to have seen if I had a better response if I was dressed in work clothes that day and not casually with a dirty softball bag.