The trip from hell

Monday morning, I was feeling all zen-like and relaxed after a week of warm weather and relaxation. In the airport, I posted a photo to this blog and thought to myself, “Oh, I’ll write something profound and meaningful when I get home tonight.” I thought, of course, that I’d be home in just a few hours. Silly me.

Little did I know that I was about to begin the trip from hell. What should have been a simple flight home evolved into 33-hour journey in which brilliant airline agents kept putting me onto planes that flew into cities at exactly the same time they were getting hit by snowstorms. The journey took four separate flights, dozens of frantic phone calls, and my whole supply of Dramamine.

The adventure began when I got bumped from my original flight, and the agent rerouted me to Newark, where it was apparently snowing hard. The plane took off several hours late, but I was still hopeful that I’d make my connecting flight and get home in time for supper.

But then the disembodied voice of the pilot came over the intercom, announcing bad news in a voice that was so cheerful that I began to question his grip on reality. “Folks, we’re on hold. We can’t land until they plow the runways.”

Apparently “on hold” means circling endlessly through the turbulent air until you are in danger of running out of fuel. That fun activity lend to more Dramamine for me and then another announcement from the cheerful pilot: “Folks, we’re going to stop off in Boston to refuel.”

Well, that got the attention of every single passenger. We all looked at each other in disbelief. Boston? We had connecting flights in Newark, not Boston. The cheerful announcements just kept coming. “Folks, it looks like our flight crew has timed out. It’s illegal for them to work for more than 12 hours.” and “Folks, looks like we’ve got a maintenance issue. We’re going to need to deplane.”

It felt good to get out of the cramped airplane, but it was the wrong airport. And it was night time. The stores and restaurants were all closed. We’d all missed our connections. My cell phone had died. And through the windows of the airport, we could see the worst news of all: the snowstorm had followed us.

The other passengers and I began bonding, much in the same way that the characters on Lost bonded when they realized the island was out to get them. British Fellow began telling Worst Ever Travel Stories. I’d spent the flight talking with College Kid Going to Oslo, and by now, we were family. I helped him answer frantic texts from his mother, and he lent me his cell phone charger. I watched his stuff while he went off in search of a vending machine: he brought me back a candy bar.

The lone airline agent kept doling out bad news about flight possibilities. One by one, we approached her with our sad stories, but she pretty much refused to help. She kept saying, “Your best bet is to fly back to Newark. Many of those flights haven’t left yet. You might still make those connections.”

We were a sizable crowd of hungry, angry passengers who were beginning to mutter and stamp our feet. I realize now that she was just doing whatever she could to send us away before she got trampled by the herd.

Eventually, we all got back on the plane. We trudged on silently, like a team who’d just lost the championship game. No one asked whether or not the maintenance issue had been solved. We were all too tired to care.

Then the plane sat on the runway for a couple of hours. Every half hour or so, trucks would come over to dump orange liquid over the windows, and College Boy would say hopefully, "We're de-iced. Now we can go." Then nothing would happen. The cheerful pilot had gone strangely silent.

Sleep deprivation affects me like alcohol, and by the time we got to Newark airport, I was stumbling around, talking to strangers in a loud voice and making comments that seemed witty at the time, but probably weren’t. I took a nap on the floor of the airport, right in front of the customer service counter, which was scheduled to open at 5 am. I could no longer remember what life outside an airport was like. Every once in a while I’d imagine my bed – the pillows, the silky sheets, the down comforter – and it was like a dream I’d had a very long time ago.

When morning came, new people began to arrive — travelers who weren’t stranded, people who walked with a bouncy step and who looked like they’d had showers. That gave us hope. An agent finally handed me a new ticket, a guaranteed seat. The flight wouldn’t leave for another six hours, but by then, time seemed irrelevant. I went to the gate hours early. I talked to everyone I could find. “Are you on my flight? Will you make sure I’m awake when it’s time to board?” I must have looked pathetic, because people responded gently, even offered me their leftover snacks. Then I tried to nap by using my backpack as a pillow. The glaring lights and dreadful music pumped in from the 1970s didn’t help my efforts.

I woke up to the cheerful announcement that our flight would be delayed another couple of hours because they “were waiting for a plane.” Apparently, whoever had scheduled the flight had forgotten that they might need a plane carry out the task. By then I was resigned to living out my remaining days in an airport. I amused myself by doing math. I could have driven home, going 30 mph, and gotten there faster.

When I finally boarded the plane for home, 32 hours after my trip had begun, the other passengers were saying things like, “Hurray! You’re finally going home.” They all seemed to know me. It was like waking up with a hangover and wondering just what the heck I’d said to all of them. But they were smiling and happy for me, so it was all good.