The day after Christmas, my fiancé Jeff and I were in a car to the Portland, Maine, airport to fly home to Seattle.
It was a sunny, clear day and we’d had an easy journey out to visit Jeff’s parents for Christmas.
Jeff suddenly piped up from the back seat: “So far the trip has gone pretty well!”
Immediately I felt uneasy. I never say a trip has gone well until I get where I’m going, return home and fit the key in the apartment door.
But our Portland flight left on time, and our connecting flight in Chicago was only delayed by a few hours. No problem! We got dinner, zoned out at the boarding area and watched as our plane landed and passengers deboarded. I was in a good mood, ready to get home and sleep in my own bed.
Then a voice came over the loudspeaker: The United Airlines flight to Seattle was cancelled for “mechanical reasons” — to get on another flight, go to gate C something-or-other.
After the initial shock and some expletives, people started running from the gate. At first I felt such a Darwinian struggle beneath me, but soon was running too. With good reason: the line to get re-booked snaked around endlessly. The line was, in fact, three hours long.
At first, grouchy passengers sighed and complained. One woman started crying.
But after awhile, people started making friends in line. Flirting commenced and phone numbers were exchanged.
Things were looking up. A United employee came around to people in line, took our boarding passes and returned within minutes. He handed us new passes and said we had a confirmed flight for the next day, Thursday.
About an hour and a half into waiting in line for the hotel vouchers, I said, “Maybe we should just leave…we’re on tomorrow’s flight.”
But we stayed — and it was lucky we did.
At the front of the line, we handed the woman behind the counter our new flight passes.
“We have a confirmed flight for tomorrow,” we told her.
“What is this?!” she said. “This flight is for today!”
The man who’d helped us earlier had made a mistake, booking us on a flight that had already left rather than a flight the next day.
The woman typed furiously as we looked on, exasperated.
“I can’t get you out of here until Friday at 5,” she said. Great.
But she did give us two free nights at a $300-a-night hotel.
We had no change of clothes, no toothpaste, no deodorant, but felt strangely happy as we scrambled aboard what I called “the party bus” — the hotel shuttle — with radio blaring and strangers joking about the situation.
The next day had all the wonder of a free, surprise vacation. We went downtown, ate Italian, walked in a park and saw the art museum’s impressive collection of Picassos and Van Goghs. We watched skaters all bundled up skidding around the ice to Christmas music as the temperature dropped.
Hordes of tourists, many speaking other languages, made their own spectacle.
(Who visits Chicago in December? Apparently lots of people with plane trouble.)
The next day, the day we were supposed to fly out, was not so wonderful. A snow storm blew in. The ever-apocalyptic Weather Channel predicted a storm in Seattle too. I had a stomachache and my body, possibly fighting off a bug, felt like it had been hit by a truck.
“Dear God, I know this is a small thing, because there’s so many people out there who have cancer and other serious problems, but please, please let us get home today,” I said, lying in bed with the Weather Channel warning of cancellations at the Chicago airport.
Hundreds of flights were cancelled that day in Chicago.
As we took the shuttle bus to the airport and checked in, I told myself: “OK – Zen state, Zen state,” trying to accept whatever was going to happen.
And then, mysteriously, I relaxed.
The plane came in only half an hour late. We boarded. The plane took off. The air was smooth.
And we were in first class — something I’ve never done before. Hot towel, anyone? The airline stewards plied us with drinks.
As we landed, I felt like kissing the misty Seattle ground.
All told, our trip to Maine turned into an adventure. We were gone a full week.
Despite the ups and downs, the stress, relief, stomachaches and the fact that I never want to eat a restaurant salad again, there was something refreshing about being shaken up by the unexpected.
My daily life in Seattle of home to work, work to home, drizzle, weekends, and more work, is — at this time in my life — so stable and predictable.
And boy, am I glad to get back to it.
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