New Year's in an Airport
However, our flight from Chicago to Kentucky was delayed. Some sort of airplane problem. Not that they ever tell you what it is. Judging by appearances, it could very well be that the seats aren't as grimy as required so they have to wait for half-time of the big game so they can have the sweaty players sit in the plane while going over the strategy for the second half. Anyway, our flight was delayed for a couple of hours.
Another flight had a more humorous predicament. "Your plane has landed, but we can't find a gate for it. As soon as one opens up ..."
We got to Kentucky a couple of hours late, but no worse for the wear.
Of course, being the fashion plate that I am, I had to wear my new-ish Strong Bad t-shirt. To my surprise, my niece pointed at it and stated, "That's the t-shirt we gave you." It wasn't. But guess what was wrapped under the tree awaiting my opening? That's right, a Rolling Stones "Let it Bleed" CD. Oh, yeah, and a Strong Bad t-shirt. Yep, my young niece spilled the beans.
But that's okay. My niece and nephew also gave me a delightful Homer Simpson Rubik's Cube. (Simpson's merchandise is ALWAYS a good gift idea for me.) The Homer Cube is a Rubik's cube in the shape of Homer's head. Except, instead of having the six sides with 16 squares per side (if my memory serves me), it had only 8 pieces. I started to fiddlin' with it, and, can you believe it, I ended up with a jumbled Homer. Now, I've never been able to solve the regular Rubik's cube so I was a working on the hope that if I kept fiddlin' it would eventually work itself out. Which it didn't. (Similarly, I also play the lottery.) My brother-in-law (who's solved the regular cube) gave it a whirl and couldn't figure it out. Then my brother-in-law's sister-in-law's friend (who could solve the regular cube) gave it a whirl and HE couldn't figure it out. What's worse, none of us could figure out what the title is of your spouse's brother's wife's sister would be in relation to you. So now we have TWO major puzzles. Anyway, this guy let me in on a secret--the key to solving the regular Rubik's cube is to line up the corners. I never knew that. The problem, you see, with the Homer cube is that it is essentially the corners of the regular cube--except nearly bald with an overbite. Since the corner pieces don't have corner pieces, we were in trouble. No one could believe an eight-piece puzzle could be so difficult; yet no one could solve it. I could get 3/4 finished (all but two pieces), but that's not solving it. It's physics; not physics class--there is no partial credit. (I assume it is physics...maybe it is a different science altogether. Psychology comes to mind.) So, finally, Stephanie asked if she could try it. Well, she couldn't solve it, BUT she did mess it up perfectly. She had it just right so that when I did the 3/4-solved thing, the final two pieces ended up the in the correct position. I quickly put it back in the plastic package, placed it in my suitcase, and notified people that, if they were to touch it, they would die. Merry Christmas.
I don't really want to go into the private details of our visit with family, but let me say two things: 1) always go bowling with youngsters because those bumper things REALLY help the ol' score, and 2) I didn't pay my hard earned money to enter the roller rink to hear "ladies only for this one; all guys need to get off the floor."
After several days of fun and pizza, it was time to go home.
Easier said than done.
I don't know if you all know this, but on January 4th, it seems there was a blizzard in Chicago. Yeah, I was clueless to it, also, until we got to the Lexington airport and were told that our flight to Chicago was delayed because of the storm in said city. And, since we were told to not stray too far away from the gate so we wouldn't miss out on any updates, our only option was to sit and watch the TV screen in the Lexington airport. What channel was it on? Fox News, of course. We sat there for a couple of hours (until they switched over to the football game) watching Fox News. I don't normally sit around watching 24 news channels, so I don't know if this is common, but Fox News rarely gets to the story. For two hours we kept hearing "Up next, Oops ... Britney Spears gets married and an annulment" or something equally lame. It seems a third of their programming consists of commercials, a third consists of "news" stories, and a third consists of promos. Of course, nowhere in there was any mentioning that the airport of one of the nation's largest city was cancelling hundreds of flights. But we heard about the ol' Britinator and her short-lived marriage. No wonder Fox News is held in such high regard.
But on with our flight. Yes, after three-plus hours of waiting and our flight was off the ground. That wasn't the problem. The problem was landing. The next conundrum we had was figuring out which was worse: holding patterns or aborted landings? We had several of both. After a long while, we landed in Chicago.
Then the fun started.
We hurried to a ticket counter/gate thing which had the logo of the airline we were using. Our flight from Chicago to Rochester had been canceled. In fact, all flights from Chicago to Rochester had been canceled for the day. Ouch! She offered us a flight to La Crosse, Wisconsin that was scheduled to depart in 3 hours. We were surprised that that was all that was available and she reiterated that it was and asked us again if we wanted it. We took it.
Shortly, we were hit with the day's REALLY bad news: the Green Bay Packers won. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
Then we called my parents to see if they would give us a ride from La Crosse to Rochester. They agreed. (Whew.) We'd make a few more calls that evening as our flight was pushed further and further back. At one point it was canceled but then brought back to life. With an announcement of a flight delay or a flight cancelation every 5 or so minutes, you start to get paranoid. Let me tell you, when there's an announcement that your flight to La Crosse has been delayed and moved to another gate and you consider yourself fortunate, you've had a bad day. After a while, you begin wondering if visiting family is worth it. A while longer and you begin wondering if HAVING family is worth it. This truly was a trip chock full of brain busters.
There was some humor, though. At one point, there was an announcement that a flight (to Pittsburgh, as I recall) was scheduled to depart at 7:30 but the pilot for the flight wasn't due in until 9:15. Now THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is faith!
Finally, we boarded the flight. About 45 minutes later, we left the gate. We got into La Crosse shortly after midnight. My parents picked us up and took us home. Safe, sound, and tired.
Our luggage arrived in Rochester Monday afternoon.
That was really our first airport weather ordeal. I've spent long hours in airports before, like that horrid day in January 1995 when every 15 minutes Newt Gingrich was shown telling us how great it was that Republicans were in control. But this was the first time when it seemed more likely than not that we'd be stranded. From the moment we walked into the Lexington airport to the time we left the La Crosse airport, we spent almost 15 hours trying to pass the time. Crosswords, reading, watching television, chatting, eating, people watching, etc. Virtually anything to help pass the time.
If only we had had some sort of Simpson-themed puzzle that needed solving...
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The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer and do not neccessarily reflect those of the rest of the family.
© 2004, Mark Wentz