8-19-09

Day 1104 of 365 Again.

So you fly to North Carolina on business, go to a meeting and go back to the airport to fly home.

You know what you don’t want to hear?

"Attention Ladies and Gentlemen, we appear to be leaking a large amount of oil out of one of our engines. We’re having a mechanic check it out before we take off."

Time passes…

I post to twitter and facebook, my brother, a flight attendant gives me a half hearted "eh, happens all the time" response. I reply that I’m not so worried about dying, worse case scenario I perish in a giant ball of flaming death, and really, there are worse ways to go out. But really, I’m not feeling good about making my connecting flight.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ve determined it’s not the engine but a generator that’s leaking, we’re making calls to find out what to do"

More time passes

"Ok, we think we can fix it. Please hang in there while our central mechanics office talks us through it on the phone."

I now have 35 min to fly what should be 45 min. to make my connecting flight.

"yeah, ok, we’re still working on it, and for all the people who are asking, ummm… we have no idea what to do about your connecting flights."

*sigh* more time passes.

"Ok, we’re still working on it, and central tells us that we need to fill out some paperwork about what we’re doing before we take off, so ummm, it might be a bit. We’ve reserved spots on later flights for most of you making connections, but if you’re going to Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Detroit or Dallas, you’re going to miss the last flight out, so you’re fucked, and uh, can you please exit the plane now."

Yeah, I’m paraphrasing maybe just a little bit, but that’s pretty close.

So now I’m sitting in a hotel in Raleigh, and I have to get up at 4am and take a 6:20 flight back home, change clothes and go to work… well, my boss has told me I can come in late, but whatever…

*sigh*

The fiery ball of death might have been cool.

365 days