This post is going to be a give-away for my friends and family. Thought long and hard about not writing this, but couldn’t resist.
Remember the post about airport and how I hate flying. One more trip was thrown at me. It was a 3 day business trip. And I thought, no big deal, I can take it. Wrong I was. I think the trip was doomed from the beginning. Had to struggle to get the flight, get the hotel,etc. Then I find out my better-half is also traveling the day before I travel. So I drop him, come back, sleep, get up early in the morning(4 am), park my car in the long term parking, head out to the airport to find that my flight is delayed by an hour. Somehow we take off after an hour, reach the destination after 4 hours of travel, rent a car and drive 120 miles to our destination. So far so good. Business was successful, we return back 2 days later in the midst of the thunderstorm to the world’s most unreliable (due to weather) airport to catch our flight. What do we see? Our flight got canceled. 1000s of passengers stranded. One of the worst storms, that the city has ever seen. So they reassingn my colleague to the next day’s flight that leaves 24 hours later and hang me loose. Then I call the airlines, hold for 30 minutes and finally beg, plead, cry to get me on the same flight as my colleague.
Then we go to find a hotel to stay. We find all the hotels nearby are sold out. Finally found a Marriot some 15 miles away. We say ok. Let us go. We go and stand in the line for taxi to see there are 200 people ahead of us in the line for a cab. A fine young lady who was going to the same hotel, called her travel services booked a limo and offered to take us with her since we helped her get the hotel. So off we go in a stretch limo in the midst of rain, thunder and lightning. Stay in the hotel, eat an expensive dinner in the only available restaurant. We tried calling the travel agent to see if we can get on an earlier flight, we couldn’t. So colleague and I retire ourselves to our respective rooms and decide to call each other to coordinate the next day at around 8am. So I get up the next day around 7:30 am, laze around in the bed, check my email, go take a shower and then see a missed call in my fone. My colleague had left a message saying that he had left for the airport early in the morning since he found a flight for himself. So I pack my bags run out to fetch a cab to see if I can try to squeeze into some flight since the weather is going to be bad that evening as well.
The person in the lobby says I need to wait for an hour to get a cab. I go out, I see a cab, he says he can take me to the airport, I get in without thinking. I call my husband and tell him that my colleague desserted me and I am on my cab and in case the cab guy kidnaps me, here are the details of the cab. And then I call my colleague, ask him for the travel agent number and he tells me that he is on the flight for 10.10am, call travel agent, she somehow gets me into another flight at 3 pm with a connection to a city 40 miles away from my original destination. I reach the aiport at 9:15am, stand in line for 30 minutes, then call the airlines and beg the representative to see if she can put in an earlier flight. She surprises me by giving a direct flight at 11:35am. I was so thrilled get into the earlier flight, call my husband and ask him if he can pick me up from this 40 miles away airport since I am landing there instead of original destination. Husband says no, he will be busy. I hang up fone, then pass security and see that the 10:10 flight now leaves at 10:20am instead. So I run to the gate and ask the representative if they have any seat available and if they can accomodate me in that flight. He says yes, and I almost kiss him and voila I am in the same flight as my colleague. I call him and ask him if he can give me a ride and he says yes. Now I am sitting in this plane and writing about it and we are about to land in 20 minutes. Thank God. I hope this jinx doesn’t continue in my future travels.
