Stranded, part 2...

Part deux (I wrote this later on during my travels when I was put onto a later flight than anticipated)…

Yeah, so I am late in getting home again. This is something that I complained about before, but it actually looked like, albeit for a short time, that it wasn’t going to happen. That everything was going to be fine and dandy, and that I would actually get home on time. Boy, was I wrong. I was led down this path of assumption by the friendly and cute gate agent in Portland. She assured me that yes, the plane was in the air, and would be landing in about 10 minutes. This would have been about 15 minutes behind schedule. The plane did land when she said that it would. Imagine my surprise. And then in speaking with said same gate agent, after checking my ticket, she assured me that I would have plenty of time to get from point A in New York to point B when we landed, because flight time from Portland to New York is less than an hour. I’ve got to say, I was in, hook, line, and sinker (unless you’re a fly fisherman, and then there really isn’t a sinker per se). The plane that was inbound from New York landed (like I said right at the approximate moment I was quoted), and then the folks sitting on the plane de-boarded fairly quickly (these are small planes after all), and we were loaded in. This was about 2:20PM, we were supposed to leave at 1:50, hey only 30 minutes, not too bad. And I was told that my gate was right next to the one we were arriving at. I was psyched. I could get home on time, get my bags, and be back at the house before 7PM most probably. We load up, taxi out, and then sit. We get an announcement, we’re being held for about 10 minutes. 10 minutes pass, we have another announcement, we are being held for another 10 minutes. 10 more minutes go by, and one last announcement. No, we weren’t moving out, we were being held for another 15-20 minutes. Add this up now. 10 + 10 + 25 (I timed the last hold) = 45 minutes, add this into the already 30 minutes that we were held up, and indeed, 1 hour and 15 minutes later we’re airborne. We make good time, land, de-board, and of course, my original plane has already left (like an hour or so ago). Knowing my luck, and I normally have nothing but bad luck, the next plane leaving at 6:05, is chock full o’ people. Oops. This means, I get pushed over to the 7:30PM flight. About 2 hours or so of flight time, and this puts me back into RDU at 9:30, maybe. Then I have to wait for the notoriously SLOW baggage handlers at RDU to unload my stuff (if it even makes it there in the first place), grab bags, and wait for my ride from the fiancée. This is how I roll when I travel. If I ever ask you to travel with me somewhere, please be aware that you’ll be kicked off of flights, made late, and or delayed and you’ll get to your destination a lot later than was planned for you. This happens to me probably 9 out of 10 times when I travel, and I can’t actually remember the last time I flew home, where coming back, or even going for that matter, where things were on time, and there were zero hassles. I should just stop this whole traveling business. It would make my life much less hectic. At least traveling by plane. Here’s the sad thing, the really sad thing. If I had driven home for Christmas this year, and if I had left early this morning, I’d just about be pulling into the old home driveway as I write this (at 6:05PM in the evening on December the 26th). I guess the good part about it, is indeed, I will be home this evening. It could be worse. I could be sleeping in the chairs, or the floor at the airport this evening. And to think how bad I have swamp ass now. If I had to sleep here, I can only imagine. I would be able to hand out some sweet stink palms though to the people who have placed me into this position if that were the case, luckily for US Airways, this isn’t the case. No stink palming today my friends, none at all. OK, maybe one. Nah, on second thought, I won’t do that today. I’m still feeling in the Christmas spirit. The best part about this though, is the fact that I won’t have to help clean cat poop this evening at home, since the fiancée is going to get home way before I do. And since our cat, “The Shark” also known as Daphne, is a rabid floor pooper, and she’s been home alone for about 3 days now, there ought to be a ton o’ cat shit on the floor as we speak. I’m sure I’ll be doing the cat poop cleaning for another week or so before I can be caught up to what the fiancée is going to encounter upon walking into the house this evening. I do feel for her, as it is not a really fun job to do, but don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that I don’t have to do it this evening.

One last note for this evening, and for this trip. How come when I sit down in a chair, I have to have someone come and sit RIGHT NEXT TO ME? It’s not like there aren’t a bunch of open and empty chairs hanging around, because there are. And it’s not like I smell nice, because I don’t after traveling around and sitting in hot vinyl seats and hot aircraft all day. So why do people do this to me? Hey chief, how about you back up off me? Well, they changed the gate of the people sitting next to me, and lucky me, they’re on my flight. So time to pack up, and move gates, which means, I’ll probably end up sitting right back down next to them again. Ah, I hate flying sometimes. I remember the good old days, when I used to like doing this sort of thing. Of course, that was when flying held interest for me, and it was new and exciting (about age 21). After 12 years of flying here, there, and everywhere, I’m done with it. I’ll fly now when needed, but it’s not something I relish. It is a means to an ends though, so I’ll keep putting up with it. And with annoying people, and annoying airlines. It’s all part of the game. There is outstanding people watching at the airport though, so for that, I’m thankful, and I do get to read a ton while I’m inevitably delayed, so that’s a good thing as well. I guess I should stop being such a negative Nilly eh? OK, time to move, and go find my new seat buddies.