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Ok. Once I was invited, second hand, to a weekend at someone's house.
Near the beach! Tropical location! Kewl! (February in Boston sucks.)
Ok, so I can't fly Delta for less than $1000. Bummer, that's
where all my frequent-flyer miles are. So how bad could American be? Got the two vacation days all set at work. I'm good to go!
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A Perfectly Normal Day
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Ah, Friday morning. Well, sure, had to get up earlier than I would for work, but I can sleep on the plane. No problem. Off to the airport shuttle bus terminal. Made it right on time to get the bus without a second
wasted. Kewl. (Wow, full bus!)
Ride by all the Rush Hour traffic in the 'zipper' lane.
Look at all them big holes! Sure hope all this Big Dig stuff eventually connects where it's supposed to connect!
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The First Sign
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Bugger. Realized I had my CD and RIO players, but forgot the headphones. Oh well.
Ah, scenic Logan Airport! The sweet smells of diesel exhaust and jet fuel!
Let's check and see what gate I need to go to…
Uhoh. My flight is cancelled? As in "CANCELLED"? Better talk to someone.
No reason for the cancellation? Equipment, maybe? Well, find me another one. Uhoh, nothing comes up? Yes! Check with yer
supervisor! Best you can do is a 2:30pm flight? Sheesh! okfine. Oh ya, I forgot. Spring Break around here. And Boston is a college town. Explains all the baggy clothes, clunky shoes, and odd body piercings. !
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Five Dollar Eggs
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Well, 5 hours to wait. Can't call anyone to tell them I'll be late, none of them are probably even awake yet. Might as well get some breakfast!!
OK, this place is pricey. But the line in front of Dunkin'
Donuts is way to long. Forget that Seattle brand coffee.
Two eggs, toast, bacon and coffee. Quite good. Tasty. It better be, gonna cost 10 bucks!
Emails with your eggs? Kewl, a free email thingy. Try it, send off a notice of my delay.
Well that was a fun hour. Four more to go.
So now what? Watch the infrequent-flyers discover the magic sinks in the men's room?
See if I can talk the guy in the 'Duty Free' Shop into a flight to Texas being a 'different country'? Oh crap. 'Duty Free' dude
went on break, never to reopen.
OK. Read my AutoWeek magazine…
Great, c'mon grandpa, pick another bench. These are all connected seats ya know!
Sit STAND sit STAND. Look around. Sit STAND sit STAND
Hey sparky, sit or don't sit. You won't meet yer party any quicker by annoying me.
Thank you.
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Maybe The Weather People are Wrong
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12:30. Just after noon. I should be flying over some square western state. But NO, I'm outside Logan Airport, having a smoke. And it's starting to snow. This isn't good. Just a few flurries, right?
Checks Internet thing at that restaurant. Hey, I ate 2 $5 eggs here, should entitle me to unlimited access, right? Bugger, both terminals are busy. No weather channel.
Airport personnel page many badly pronounced and totally incomprehensible names, to go to completely vague locations, like the "Main Desk". They don't even say what airline.
Love watching folks ask each other, "was that us?" though.
Now I'm thinking of buying one of these $100,000 cars in the AutoWeek magazine.
Time for another smoke..
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Five Dollar Beers
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Another smoke Break. Aw, crap. Now it's really snowing!
Note: There are signs all over Boston's Logan Airport telling you that you may only smoke in a 'Designated Smoking Area'. There aren't any. None. Trust
me on this.
(Bet Raleigh-Durham's got em!)
By now I've be X-rayed so many times, I glow in the dark.
Should I get lunch? Why not! A LARGE Killian's Barkeep!
At least the Nascar truck race is on TV. Geez! Red flagged! This is not going well.
(Good to see Bodine recovered from that one, btw.)
Ooo. This couple has never flown much. Or even been anywhere real! No,
sorry, this is a bar. No, you can't get a nice little salad and some mineral water. Cheeseburgers and Hot Dogs, Beer's and Sodas. Sorry. He's the bartender. That's the menu. This is an airport.
Just get back in yer Volvo and go back to Vermont.
Wow. I've met a lot of people from Dallas. Right here in Boston, and they're not happy!
Too many people trying to get to, or through, Dallas, actually.
Some are on their second day of this. I'm almost embarrassed to complain. Some very expensive vacations ruined, too, perhaps.
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Delays, Delays
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The snow is coming down hard now. At least an inch an hour they say. Uhoh.
Yes, another Killians, barkeep, thanks. My inner child is whining, better drown it.
Now I'm starting to see familiar faces.
Old friends from the bars and X-ray machines.
All of us dragging luggage around behind us.
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Halleluiah, Finally!
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Boarding? Really? Wow, only 3pm, now! Why not wait for the snow to get real bad? Morons.
Great. Claustrophobic Guy gets the middle seat.
The oversized and overvoiced jackass on the aisle seat loudly
proclaims to someone on the other end of his cell phone that this plane would crash in this snow. Departs soon after. Hopes he has a bizarre escalator accident.
Guy on the window seat thinks he departed to try another plane.
I think the crew tossed him into the nearest snowplow.
I watch WindowSeatGuy wrestle with a spreadsheet for a few minutes, and then I decide
to see if there are any cleverly hidden patterns in the fabric of the headrest in front of me. There aren't.
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Great. Why are they not de-icing THIS plane?
I got a bad feeling about this…
We aren't going ANYWHERE.
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2 hrs of chatting with various people from Dallas who are THIS far from the deep end…
Just GO!! Crashing into Boston Harbor beats driving home in the snow, or listening to these people whine into their cell phones!
And my relatives could make a snazzy memorial in OW!
FINE, let me off this stupid damn wussy plane if it can't go anywhere!
Go or get off the pot! Fish or cut bait! Don't give me 6 peanuts and some water!
C'mon! It's just piling up out there! If I want to be stranded in a snowstorm, it's going to be at a nice cozy bar, not stuck on
some underpowered 737 at the airport!!!!
(Why it took them 2hrs to decide we weren't going anywhere, I don't know.
Perhaps they ate too many peanuts.)
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Let this be a Lesson to Us All
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Great. Sat on a plane for two hours and never went anywhere except the bathroom.
At least now I know why I never check luggage! Grabbed the ticket for the refund.
OK, now I'm finally outside. Where's the
(expletive deleted) bus? Finally. Whoa, this sucker is full, too! Good to see traffic is moving. 12mph, but faster than that plane! Finally back at the Braintree terminal. Too bad I dressed for an airplane
flight and not a snowstorm.
Now I have to find my ubiquitous white Taurus in a parking lot when there's 8 inches of snow and it's still coming down heavy. Pity they didn't plow the parking lot, too.
Another
great thing about those carryon suitcases with wheels is that you can use them as a snowplow. True story!
Highway looks to be stopped dead in both directions, better take the back roads home. Wow. 8"
of unplowed snow AND detours! There are only four cars on this road, at 7pm on a Friday nite! Ooops, should've stopped for that red light, but I was already sideways. Well, only 2 hrs to get home. All 20 miles. Sure
glad I had them 6 peanuts.
Try to come to a stop at this store that is still open and pick up some beer. Nice try.
Well, there go 12 hours and another vacation day. At least I had breakfast for a change.
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OK, so Mission Implausible. Was fun though, wasn't it?
Yes, I got the money back for the airline ticket. Used it to do some renovations to the condo. (We won't talk about that sinkhole just now.)
The Ultimate Insult: Had to pay for a day's parking. (Expletive Deleted).
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