WTH?!

I mean, really.  It wasn't even that much snow.  This is Chicago.  It's winter.  It SNOWS here.

I got right up to the desk to drop off my suitcase this morning and they cancelled my flight.  Something about no visibility . . .

Well, I do have to admit that there is no margin for error at Midway.  When you take off from there, the plane goes as fast as mechanically possible, and once it's airborne, it pretty much just goes straight up.  Yes, really.  And when you land there, you plunge out of the sky, bounce once on the runway and they jam the brakes on so hard you'd think you were on re-entry from space.  And you know, if they don't jam on the brakes, here's what happens.  The really big planes can't land there, the runways aren't long enough.

I think the phrase "coming in hot" was invented for Midway.  The airport can't expand any further - it's within the city limits and there are homes on every side.  So when you're dropping out of the sky, it's not like O'Hare, where there is a lot of space (because at O'Hare, they just use eminent domain and take what they want . . . ) around the runways.  No, you are flying right over peoples' homes and businesses.

I always warn people when they come to visit if they haven't flown in or out of Midway before, because it can be really startling.  Even to me.  Once, I was coming home on a late flight from Arizona.  Since I got the "sleep anywhere, anytime" gene from my mother, I got on the plane in AZ and promptly fell asleep, not waking up until we were at the very end of our descent.  I had a window seat - always my seat of choice - and as I came awake, I, of course, looked out the window.   And nearly screamed bloody murder.  For a split second, I thought we were coming in to O'Hare and that something had gone terribly wrong for me to be practically seeing in the windows of peoples' houses, which meant, of course, that we must be crashing, because there are no houses surrounding O'Hare.  Wide awake I was, then.  Har de har har.

A, is there a point to this rambling?

Oh.  Why yes, yes there is.  I should be in in Massachusetts by now, eating seafood and getting ready for a week long retreat with my Iona sister, Tori.  But I'm home, in my jams, my clothes having been removed and tossed into the laundry because they smell like exhaust because I had to snow blow the driveway because it snowed today and my stupid flight was cancelled right when I got up to the effing baggage drop off desk. 

To make the first part of a long story short, the woman at that baggage drop off desk assured me that I had the last seat on the same flight I had that leaves tomorrow.

So, I turn around, and go to work for a half day.  And I go online to check in for my flight tomorrow, and the website won't let me.  Because, apparently, the woman at the baggage drop desk didn't actually grab me that seat like she assured me she had . . .

I'm now going to make the second part of this long story short.  I had to spend at least 40 minutes on the phone with Southwest, and go through two people who swore up and down that they couldn't do anything and I would have to wait to get to Hartford (gateway to Massachusetts, and where my Iona sister, Tori, is picking me up) until the middle of the night tomorrow, to get to someone who could actually assist me.  His name is Sam. He rocks hard.  At least, I'm reasonably sure he does. I'm going to be sending along a compliment to the powers that be about Sam - tomorrow after I get to Hartford.

In the meantime - I'm home.  In my jams.  Eating hummus and carrots.  And some toast.  Toast sounds good, doesn't it?  There's no food here.  I was supposed to be on Cape Cod . . .

Oh, BTW, I was down 1.4 pounds when I weighed in on Wednesday.  Yay Me!

Comments

What a sucky day. But great job on the weight loss.

Popular Posts