Travel mistle-woes

Sorry for the delay… I would have posted this earlier but I trapped at the airport.

There’s no way I can escape it. My parents live in another state, a 10 hour drive from where I live. If I fly, it’s only a 90 minute flight but I get caught up in the insanity at the airports. If I drive, I lose 2 days of family time and deal with the nutcases on the road. Not to mention I would add too many miles to my car.

We were booked on a flight to get home on Tuesday evening. I checked the flight mid-afternoon to learn that our flight has been pushed back 2 hours which would get us into the closest airport (2 hrs away from home) at 11pm. So we call and reschedule to the earlier plane which is scheduled to leave at the same time our flight was originally scheduled for. (got that?)

We get to the airport and still see that our “new” flight has the same departing time. Yippee! We can go home. We get though security and go to the gate where we wait for 2 hours only to learn the fight’s been cancelled because of weather. (wait… our family in NY says the weather is fine. What’s up with that?) While we wait on a very long line of tired and unhappy travelers, my husband calls my parents to see if they are willing to come get us. We get rescheduled for the first flight out the next morning (Wednesday).

Up at 4:30am, excited to finally be going home, we are 45 mins early for our 7am flight only to find out at 7:30 that it’s cancelled because of mechanical failure. We get rescheduled for a flight departing at 6:45pm. Again we call the parents. Both of us call work to let them know there’s no way we can get there. Understanding bosses are wonderful but they can’t make the work stop piling up.

What about our luggage? Will it leave and when? We’re told it will get to NY but they don’t know on what flight or on what day. Wonderful.

Are you following this so far?

At 4pm, I check the flight status and learn the flight is pushed back to 8:30. This is where I’ve reached my breaking point. In my frustration, I am unable to speak coherently to the airline without a slew of profanity. So I hand the phone to my husband so he can handle things. He is assured that to the best of the agent’s knowledge our flight will take off that night and told "no, sir, we will not reimburse your tickets because of the toubles you've encountered." Sigh.

While he talks to the airline, I use my cell phone to call the place where my car is living so it doesn’t get towed.

So yes, in the end our flight took off – at 9:00pm, getting us into NY at 10:30.

Now it’s luggage time. The luggage belt is moving but out suitcases are not on it. I wait on the lost baggage line (which is being handled by 1 very unlucky person) as we get notice that a sign on the door says that the lost baggage department will close at 11pm. WHAT? How can they close when we all need to talk to them?

Finally it’s our turn to speak with the agent (at 11:25pm). We give her our luggage claim stickers and voilà -- she has good news for us! The bags are in the storage area and she’ll make sure someone there brings our bags up for us. We just need to walk across the airport to the storage center.

Ok, so in the end I guess I shouldn’t bitch. We landed safely, got our bags and found my car in one piece. We got home last night (or was it this morning) at 2:30am… and I still made it to work.

We need to find a way to teleport… I just worry that if/when we do, I’m gonna arrive at someone else’s destination.