I’m pretty sure I know what hell is like, and it comes in
the form of an airport.
And airport in Atlanta.
See? Hotlanta, like hell is hot… whatever.
It really is perfect though. Think about it:
greasy food,
constant gate switches, confusion, lines that never end, unhelpful workers,
they get your hopes up then dash them again, rude people, exhaustion that never
seems to end and no escape. Ever.
That was my day,
is my day… I’m still here.
It started out so well. My mom and I wanted to surprise my
dad for his 35th work anniversary. The big boss of the company was
flying in to take my dad and guests of his choice out for a nice dinner,
wherever he wanted. When my mom asked him who he wanted to invite he said, me (except
I live in Florida and they’re in Kansas City) and his parents (both are dead.)
None of those seemed plausible. We knew it would be special for him if I showed
up as a surprise, and he deserves it, so we planned the whole thing. I bought
my tickets on HotWire, getting the cheapest I could, considering I don’t have
that much expendable income, set up a place to stay until the dinner, it was
perfect.
Then snowpocalypse (i.e. a regular snowy day anywhere else)
happened.
That was two days ago, but yesterday they canceled my
evening flight. I started to worry a little (read: a lot), but I got new
flights for early this morning that would get me into Kansas City in plenty of
time to get pretty and make it to the dinner.
My original flight for this morning was canceled right
before I went to bed, I somehow miraculously checked it or I wouldn’t have
known, and replaced with one an hour earlier, so I woke up at 5 a.m. to get to
the plane on time. Everything was great, except they kept warning that some
flights had already been canceled. But I was obsessively checking mine; it was
fine, still “on time,” no big deal.
I landed in Atlanta. We’re still good, the other Kansas City
flight scheduled for an hour after mine was canceled, I felt bad for those poor
people, but at least it wasn’t me. I sat around, read, got some lunch, checked
my flight again…. And there it was. Cancelled, in that red writing surrounded
by other happy flights that still touted “on time.”
So, being someone that doesn’t handle the strain of giant
plans changing well, I freaked out. I started crying, not going to lie, I wasn’t
wailing or anything, but there were definitely giant tears rolling down my
face. My lip was quivering, it was definitely a thing. I’m standing in line
with these other people that have either just gotten to the airport with their
bags neatly packed to see grandchildren or business people that think the whole
thing is a circus and kind of funny (probably because it is a PR nightmare that
has been handled terribly. I bet they were thinking, “Glad it’s not my
company.”) There are people calling family and explaining they still aren’t
coming home even though they spent the night in the airport, some of them were
teary, so I felt a little better. My family and friends kept telling me to try
to get a different airline, one that isn’t so… horrible? That’s a nice word. I’ll
use horrible… or fucking awful, that’s a good one too. Some were telling me to
be a bitch and stand up for myself, some said I should just try to fly home again.
I got on the “help” phone with a representative; they had
already rescheduled me to a flight the next morning, stupid considering I don’t
have a place to stay in Atlanta. I asked her to put me on AirTran, they can’t
do that, I explained that I need to get home by 6 p.m. (dinner time) and that
I’ve been sitting in the airport for four or five hours already. Thank goodness
she gave me a new flight for 4 p.m. Why I wasn’t originally put on that one,
I’ll never know.
My mom told my dad about the surprise, since I was trapped
in an airport, so much for that good deed (no good deed goes unpunished, for
real.) He was grateful for the thought. It just isn’t the same, it could have
been magical, that was all just completely ruined.
I picked a spot by the gate and tried to curl up in a way
where my legs were over both my carry-ons, so someone couldn’t take them. Let
me tell you, that’s not a comfortable way to sleep, nor is it restful
considering you always think you’re going to wake up with a missing bag.
The gate changed once, then twice, then again, but I was
going to make it to dinner at 6 p.m. I didn’t want to bitch too much, karma,
you know.
Finally, it was time to board. I stress about everything and
have anxiety about everything, so I kept thinking when they scanned my boarding
pass it wasn’t going to work. Seriously, that kept going through my head.
It did work, but after the day I had already had, I wouldn’t
have been surprised.
Boarding took forever, they hadn’t planned on so many
rolling carry-ons and we had to wait for someone to come and check them to put
below the plane. Poor planning, but again, I was sitting on the plane. Yay.
Not five minutes after sitting down we had to deplane. For
real. I would not joke about this because first, it isn’t funny and second, I
started crying again. You want to know why we couldn’t leave? Because we didn’t
have a fucking pilot. I think those are pretty important personally, but what
do I know, I don’t work for Delta. Oops, did I say the name of the airline?
Then we waited for another two or three hours for the pilot
to come, and we had to switch terminals just to add insult to injury.
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| Are you sure you want me to share my thoughts? |
So, here I am, still sitting, waiting to hopefully get to
see my family. I wanted to congratulate my dad, and we are supposed to
celebrate my birthday too (my quarter-life crisis is coming up… 25… that’s 25
if you’re confused.) But we’ll see. Maybe I got in a car accident on my way to
the airport and this is really purgatory... or hell…. It could still be hell.
