Flying

Airplanes and I are not very good friends.

In my most vulnerable state, my animosity stems from my fear of plane crashes. But the reason that's more fun to talk about about is my ridiculously bad luck.

My first missed connection was the first time I flew by myself in high school, in the days before cell phones. Since then, I've flown through lightning storms, slept overnight in airports, slept in hotels next to airports, lost luggage (on my honeymoon), lost a passport, and had my airplane jump-started. On my most recent flight home from Connecticut, the passengers started joking about our flight being made into a movie when we were re-routed through Abilene because the weather in Dallas was so bad and we were about to run out of gas. I just laughed.

My worst experience, however, was three weeks before my wedding, already a crazy time in my life. We were living in Nashville, working full-time, and planning a wedding in Louisiana. I was in two other weddings in the three weeks before my wedding. Around this time I flew to six places in six months. No vacation time + many out-of-state weddings = insanity.

I had gone home for a good friend's wedding and was on my way back to Nashville. Flight plan: Lake Charles to Houston, Houston to Nashville.

I should have known it was going to be a long day as soon as we arrived at the Lake Charles airport. The two-gate airport was overflowing with passengers. Due to massive amounts of rain, my flight was delayed, and I was going to miss my connection. New flight plan: Lake Charles to Houston, Houston to Memphis. My darling fiance packed up and headed west to pick me up.

I arrived in Houston, and the airport became more and more like the Twilight Zone as the afternoon went on. Flights were being canceled left and right. My gate was in a tucked-away part of the airport, down an escalator, isolated with about ten other gates - no stores, no food, no bathrooms. And no one was getting out. Every 15 minutes or so, the gate attendants would make an announcement - another flight had been cancelled, or in my case, the flight was delayed another 30 minutes. And then another 30 minutes. And then another.

Rumors were flying. Passengers on one New Orleans flight boarded their plane, sat on the runway for an hour, and then were told the flight was canceled and taken back to the airport. The group of high school boys on a field trip had already been at the airport for two days. The line to get a new ticket had a four-hour wait. No one could get through to Continental on the phone. One frequent-flier businessman finally got through due to his special connections and was told the earliest available flight left on Tuesday (two days later). Several groups were renting cars to get home instead of waiting on flights. And no one had any information. At 10 pm, all of the Continental employees except one left. Went home. Their shifts were over. Hundreds of customers were waiting to know where they would be spending the night, and the employees just left. Customer service at its finest.

Sometime during the afternoon, my cell phone battery started to die, and my charger was in my checked baggage. I kept borrowing one of the high school boy's cell phones to keep Clint and my parents updated. By now Clint had checked into a hotel in Memphis.

By midnight, my flight was the only one that hadn't departed or been canceled. We kept being told that it was delayed 30 minutes, that we would still be able to leave because the Memphis airport was open later than other airports because of their FedEx connections. We couldn't leave to get food, or in my case to go to the pay phone, because our plane could arrive at any minute.

At 2 am my flight was canceled. The line to get a new ticket was closed. No one at Continental would answer the customer service phone number. All the restaurants were closed.

Because of all the weddings, I had zero extra vacation days and desperately needed to be at work the following morning (by now, I guess it was that morning). Believing it would be days before Continental would put me on another flight, I woke my parents up at 2:15 and asked them to buy me another plane ticket (several passengers were doing this). The only one they could find left at 8 am. DONE. It left out of the airport across town, but that didn't seem like a big deal. I would do anything to get out of this Continental Twilight Zone.

I slept on the floor for a few hours, freezing, and set the high schooler's cell phone alarm for 4 am so I could go hail a cab. When the alarm went off, I made my way out the exit and past the concerned security guard who thought I was 15.

Standing outside the deserted airport on the curb in the middle of the night felt like a scene out of a movie. There was a little booth with a phone that I punched a button on so a cab driver would know someone was waiting.

This was going to be the longest cab ride of my life.

To be continued...