Can anyone relate to the following?
You go away, spend an amazing few days with the person you love, you’re on a great natural high, feeling loved, full of life, hopeful, relaxed, enjoying the ‘now’, positive about the future, all in all- your little holiday has gone wonderfully, every step of the way.
UNTIL YOU REACH THE AIRPORT. (Queue ominous music)
Before you even make it to the Check-In counter, you look up to one of the Arrival/Departure screens only to realize that your flight is very easy to spot because it is the only one that says CANCELLED in huge red letters. Somehow, after drama, frustration, angst and perhaps in some cases some screaming and crying, you get re-routed to some other airport and are assured that you will make your connection.
Two things tend to happen at this point:
A. You miss that connection and then are stuck in some airport you hadn’t even planned to fly in to.
B. You arrive to this airport that you had no intention of flying in to, and you have plenty of time to make your connection but your connecting flight is delayed by one hour. Or so you think! (Queue EVIL LAUGHTER!)
You go get a bite to eat. You sit down, read the paper, relax. You use the bathroom. You buy some magazines and gum. You walk by an Arrivals/Departurtes screen only to realize that your departure time has been pushed back by another 30 minutes. Then fifteen minutes later, they push the time back by another 15 minutes. And then so on and so forth until finally you can’t even remember what time you were scheduled to fly out originally. And the most annoying part is they’re pushing it back in small increments. They should just have the cojones to tell you that your flight has been delayed by 4 hours. In which case people might phone a local friend to come visit, or step outside to have a smoke, or get into a cab and do some shopping. ANYTHING THEY DAMN WELL FEEL LIKE DOING. But this ridiculous way they have of delaying fight times in small increments as a means to keep you a prisoner at the airport is just WRONG.
So, you finally get on the plane. And, after the longest taxi time in the history of the world (“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking, we are currently 37th in line for take-off”) you finally reach your destination. Exhausted. How do those people sleep on the plane? It’s so noisy and uncomfortable!
You may be tired, but now you have to walk close to a mile to get to the Baggage Claim area. You arrive there, delirious because it’s so late it’s now officially “tomorrow” only to realize that it may possibly be that your bags either A) Didn’t make the connection or B) Are literally going to be the last ones to come out.
You have your bags (or you don’t) and you wait (and wait and wait) for the shuttle to come pick you up to take you to your car. There goes another 40 minutes. You finally make it to your car, pay the over-priced parking fee, and drive, half asleep, thirty minutes to your home.
As you go to bed you realize that you only have three hours of sleep before you have to get up for work.
And so ends your amazing little holiday trip- in absolute exhaustion, anger and frustration.
Yet, you were the happiest person on Earth only 14 hours ago!
Thanks American Airlines. Thanks.
) )
