Sometimes I’m just lucky.
Today I woke up at my parents’ house, here in time for Christmas after travelling many many hours and failing, a few times, to catch a plane that actually flew.
Yesterday I set out from Seattle at 1 am, and arrived only a little late to the next stop, to find that my next flight had been cancelled “because it had no flight crew.”
“It wouldn’t have gotten far without one, anyways!” I joked with the gate agent, and then asked for a “snack voucher” while I waited for Northwest to sort out their stuff.
Normally I just don’t eat airport food – it’s always overpriced and underwhelming. Think eight dollars for udon that feels like pink pearl erasers in your mouth, or for a slice of pizza that doesn’t even rival what they serve in high school cafeterias.
No thanks!
But being stranded, for an indeterminate time, with a cancelled flight and nothing but a meal voucher for consolation (and even THAT little, they wouldn’t have given me if it had been a weather delay), makes the situation a leeeetle different. I could at least get a sandwich and a cup of coffee to fortify for further adventure. The coffee was fine – they can’t mess that up to badly - and the “italian”-style sandwich was nourishing, I believe, although it had almost no flavor and a texture like moist old socks. I could only get through half.
So how happy I was! when the gate agent told me that, after two days of not being where I had planned to be, of all the multitude crowding to get the last spot on the probable last-for-the-day flight to my destination, I was the lucky one who would be flying away. And although I was a bit sorry for those left behind, I reasoned that their time would come. Eventually. Maybe when they had also been waiting two days.
Poor souls.
And now I must close, because coffee is getting cold, biscuits are in the oven and eggs in the pan.
Comforts of home, indeed!
