Into The Air Travel Abyss.

“Zone three passengers, you are now welcome to have your entire travel plans scuttled. You will be left wondering if anyone even remembers you are here. You will be kept in the dark as to exactly what is going on with your plane. You are free to call clogged phone numbers or wait in a line that moves with the speed of a blood engorged leech. If you do happen to get to the front of the line (though this is only possible be concocting a wrinkle in the time-space continuum) we will type furiously at the keyboard while we think of a way to further inconvenience you. Oh, and by the way, those of you with connections, you can forget about those.”


The gate agent went on to say, “We will, however, have marriage counselors standing by, if indeed you think your marriage can be saved after spending the next six hours in the boarding area together.”

“The problem,” he stated, “is that the front tire of the aircraft has a bolt stuck in it. This requires a spare tire (and not the baby spare we keep on the plane, a real tire), a mechanic and a jack. This being an airport and all means that none of these is within three hundred thousand miles of our gate. So, while the actual changing of the tire should only take about thirty minutes, getting all three here may take anywhere from ten minutes to, oh hell, we have no idea. But be sure we will not keep you informed.”

“Meyer family? Yes, yes. We have you booked on the next connection out of Charlotte at ten tonight. AND, only five and half hours after your scheduled departure! However, when you get to Charlotte, you will find that we managed to book your wife and kids on the eight o’clock flight, and you, Mr. Meyer, on the ten o’clock. This way you can plan to catch a cab while your family finally gets to sleep!”

Smiling, he continued, “What you don’t know is that you will be able to fly stand-by on the flight with you family after all. BUT, that flight we have your family booked on – that plane is delayed out of Philadelphia, so in Charlotte you can pace some more at the gate until we decide we can’t get the flight from Philadelphia in. We will pull a plane out of mothballs for you all to fly on – preferable with no bolts in the tire. Therefore, the 8:00 flight will actually leave at 8:45. When you get to Pittsburgh, your baggage will be on Belt A. But, if after everyone has retrieved their baggage and you are left alone, go to Belt B. Silly us, we put everyone’s bags on A but yours…just go to B…after you wait an extra twenty minutes and have suppressed your homicidal feelings”

The agent finished by saying, “As a special gift, the power will be out at your house when you finally get home at midnight. Then, after you realize you don’t have your house keys and are just about to drive your car through the garage to get in, the power will come on. We know you have a choice when flying, thanks again!”