Saturday, January 29, 2011

a few airport adventures

I was in NE last week and my flight to NE was delayed an hour due to a mechanical issue with the aircraft. My initial thought was, "Well - good thing we didn't identify the mechanical issue while in flight." But most people's responses were, "WHAT?? a delay?? This cannot be!!" Then they subsequently get loud and obnoxious and start yelling at the counter people at the gate. I get the frustration of your plans having to change but did they miss the beginning of that message?... a MECHANICAL issue!! Not to mention, while we were all sitting in Albuquerque, the airline was calling us up one by one if this delay was going to cause us to miss our connection so our connection could get rescheduled. I thought this was incredible because usually they send you on your way and you have to figure it out when you're at your next location. I got my flight all figured out and I got to Lincoln safely and successfully.

This got me thinking about other airport stories throughout my 29 years of life. One that sticks out the most was when I was flying by myself(don't recall where) and I was sitting at the gate. This gentleman turned to me and asked, "Could you watch my bag while I run to the bathroom?" I stared at him and said in all seriousness, "Well - they say you should never take unknown baggage or packages from someone you don't know. Sorry." His mouth dropped open and he grabbed his bag and walked off. He was not impressed with my response but hey, I was following the rules!

Another was when I visited Mike down in FL(while he was training for 6 months in GA prior to us moving to DC) and when I was leaving, I was hysterically crying(like 'can't catch my breath' crying) because I didn't want to leave my love. This older woman came over and sat down by me. She asked me if I was ok, gave me a tissue, and said that everything was going to be ok. How nice of her, huh?

My last story involves Mike and I and our first flight was delayed so we had to jump off our first flight and run to our next. We must have been going somewhere warm because I was in flip flops...so off we ran(and it was quite a long way) and I left Mike is the dust!! Now it wasn't officially declared a race but I definitely beat Mike to the gate. :)

Any interesting airport stories you want to share?

In other news ~ Mike has been at the AZ/Mexico border for almost 2 weeks on a work detail...he gets back on Tuesday(which also happens to be his birthday)! Can't wait to be reunited with my hubs again!

5 comments:

Janna said...

No crazy airplane adventures here. ;o) I'm smiling at the thought of you racing Mike in flip-flops and thinking you had a great attitude with delays--yes, they're inconvenient, but like you said, better to take care of mechanical issues before leaving the ground!

Hope you and Mike have a lovely reunion!

Nikki said...

I love that you wouldn't watch the guys baggage! That made me laugh. I think you've heard my craziest airplane story. Second leg of a three flight journey to Bali, finding a metal staple in our in-flight meal, being diverted to another airport after three unsuccessful landing attempts, hearing pilot tell us we would run out of gas unless we refueled, and ending up stranded for 24 hours in Taiwan. Surprisingly fun, overall. Though, I'd stay away from China Air if I was you ;)

Beth said...

the kids and i traveled down to st. louis alone to visit grandpa (unknown to us for probably the last time). on the way back, cuz Jason insisted that we fly (it was cheaper than driving), we were in the airport ready to come back. our flight was supposed to leave at 5 or 5:30 in the evening. so we are all ready to board and then they announce our flight is delayed, because the airplane is delayed in Dallas due to bad weather. i'm thinking, "ok, maybe we will be delayed for a 1/2 hour to hour tops." NO, we were delayed for nearly 3 1/2 hours. i have a 7 year old and an almost 2 year old with me (i think that's how old the kids were)! at one point i was trying to shoosh them, but after a couple hours, I was just fine with letting them run all over the area. sure, i got some glares and people that were pissy, but all i could do was think to myself, "screw you, you don't have two kids with you that have had to wait for 2-3 hours with nothing to do!"

Beth said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Stacey said...

I seem to remember a flight to Cancun where we arrived with only mike's duffel bag of Gatorade...