I know that those of you who travel a lot (as well as those of you who just like to hear about people having trouble) will want an update on my New Years Eve trip to Des Moines to pick up the last four segments I need to earn my pitiful status level.  I don’t want to give away the ending, but would I bother doing this if everything had gone according to plan?  But then those of you who travel often know that the chances of things going according to plan are about as great as the chance that Riannah would suddenly decide she wanted to meet me. 

 

It started OK.  Beautiful flying day, no wind, almost no clouds, no snow or sleet.  Flew to O’Hare, flew to Des Moines, walked around in their surprisingly nice terminal for a few minutes, then flew back to O’Hare.  So far so good. 

 

Ah, O’Hare.  In the 14^th century poem, the Divine Comedy, the poet Dante Alighieri describes Hell as a vast, sloping bowl, the sink to which all sin and degradation comes.  O’Hare is a little like that.  I like O’Hare, really I do.  It’s like a second home to me, but if anything bad can happen, it’s going to happen at O’Hare. 

 

When I arrived, the first thing I noticed is that my flight out of there had been delayed – mechanical problems.  Instead of leaving around 2 PM, it wasn’t going to take off until close to 5.  Now in my experience, estimates for fixing mechanical problems are almost always hopelessly optimistic.  They’re like software bugs.  You say a couple of hours but you really mean tomorrow.  So I started looking for other flights.  The ‘next’ flight was due to leave at 4 PM so I quickly switched to that one and to begin with that looked like a good choice. 

 

They loaded us on the plane, got everybody seated, and I thought we were ready to go when they decided to forcibly remove someone from the aircraft.  Apparently some sort of dispute about who had the right to sit in the exit row.  At any rate, 20 minutes and a lot of shouting later, a gentleman with a foreign accent was being escorted to where ever they take you when you screw up really bad.  But no problem (for us, I hope he made it home by now), we have only lost a half hour or so.  We tightened our seat belts and got set but then the pilot decided that four of us needed to move to the back so the plane didn’t tip over and spiral into the ground once we were airborne.  Since I was sitting in the front, and since the flight attendant was really cute (you know how it is, guys), I volunteered to move to the back.  I hate flying in the back of the plane but at least we were going to get going.  Fortunately, the seat for the guy who was taken off the plane was open and I settled into it.  Case closed, ready to go.  Right?   Then they tried to close the door.  I didn’t realize there were multiple sensors to tell whether the door was shut tight but apparently there are and apparently one of them didn’t feel things were all snugged up.   In case you are not keeping up here, this would be a ‘mechanical problem’ and one that they felt they could fix ‘pretty quick’.   After half an hour and a lot of banging up by the door, they decided it wasn’t going to be so quick and the plane needed to be grounded for the night.

 

So we all got off the plane.  The first thing I did was check my old flight.  It was now showing a departure time of 8:30 PM so I felt good about my decision.  Uncharacteristically, the airline decided to just bring a new plane up rather than trying to fix the old one.  So, I waited, and waited, and waited.  By this time it is almost 6 PM, which is 7 PM where I live, I had invited a friend to come over about 8:30 for New Years Eve, and I had promised my very understanding wife that I would be home ‘early in the afternoon’ to help her get ready.  I am beginning to get a bit nervous.    But, given what has already happened today, I don’t want to be too verbal. 

 

For kicks I once again check the schedule monitors and see that the original flight I was on has suddenly gone from departing at 8:30 PM to being ‘closed’, meaning it is ready to take off.  I think for a moment about running screaming down the terminal to see if I can get on board but good breeding and bad knees win out and I stay where I am.  Finally, they bring the plane up, we stampede on board (nobody seems to want to spend New Years Eve in O’Hare, the guy I am sitting next to is on his way to a blind date 800 miles from home), and the pilot heads out.  And as we lift off into the air, I turn to my seat mate and say one of my favorite lines ‘Ah, one can only marvel at the speed, comfort, and convenience of modern air travel’.  He just rolls his eyes. 

 

Fortunately, my friend is late and I get home in time to help my wife do a couple of last minute things.  And I feel good about the day because I have beaten the system.  Ha!  They thought they could screw me out of my rightful place in the flying hierarchy just because I haven’t flown enough miles.  I guess I showed them.