Thankfully, by the time we reached Dallas, the rain had stopped...and so had the baby. :) Our captain informed us that there was a plane in our gate, so I used the 20 minutes it took for us to taxi in to our gate to call my parents and figure out the ticket situation. Because I was 2 hours late, I missed my flight, so my dad called in and booked me on another flight. He gave me detailed instructions on how to get my new ticket and even told me the gate number. Finally, after about 5 hours (which really isn't that bad after flying to china ;) I exited the first plane. I was, at this point --10:30pm, Dayton time--, more than ready to eat.
As I scanned the screen of departures to make sure my flight was leaving out of the gate my dad had told me, my phone began to ring.
Me-hello?
My mom- Hi, you need to hurry. Daddy switched your flight. You're flying out of a different gate now. Here's the ticket number. When you get there...
Me- He already called, I'm going, and he told me what to do.
My mom- Oh. Well, hurry! They're already boarding!
Ugh. With the word "hurry!" echoing in my ears, I sped up and rushed to the new gate. The man didn't even ask for my old boarding pass, but found my new one and handed it to me with a, "Here you are sweetie. You better board now."
So I boarded. Without food. Alas.
Thankfully, American Airlines assigns seats, so it was easy to find mine. Getting my bag into the overhead compartment was a little harder. I'm not really that short --5'4"-- but these overhead bins are pretty high. I had to stand on my seat and use my strong basketball muscles to swing the bag wildly up over my head and into the bin. Luckily, I didn't hit anyone's heads, but I probably looked pretty pathetic. Once settled in my seat..
"Excuse me, this is your captain speaking,"
Oh no, not him again. (ok, this was a different one, but these announcements didn't seem to ever result in anything positive)
"We have passengers flying in on another plane, so we'll need to wait for them to get off that plane and board this one." *sighs throughout the plane*
An older couple sat next to me. The husband was sleeping when I boarded. I have no idea how he did it sitting straight up, with his chin drooping onto his chest, but he slept the entire way. The wife and I exchanged our woeful airplane stories.
"Yes we usually fly South West," she muttered confidentially, casting the nearest stewardess a dark glance, "and this is why!"
I agreed with her, feeling it was safest not to be on the receiving end of one of her angry looks, and added that I thought the video repeating itself over and over on the tv screen above was kind of annoying.
"Yes," she said, "I guess it's supposed to be peaceful, with the picturesque scenes and flute music, but that flute is getting on my nerves."
"I've seen those salmon jump up the river about four times now," I commented.
"I know," she agreed, "And I like flowers, but I don't want to be one" she exclaimed, as the camera did an extremely close-up tour of the inside of a flower, accompanied by several spasmodic trills of the flute.
Criticizing the "Peace and Relaxation" video occupied us for the next 20 minutes, while the other passengers boarded and took their seats. The video then switched over the safety instructions, which was almost a relief after the flute. Finally, when everyone had been thoroughly prepared for any type of emergency..
"This is your captain speaking," loud groans echoed, unchecked from nearly everyone on board, "It seems we have a mechanical issue that must be taken care of before we take off," more groans, "We thank you for your patience (ha yeah right), and once again apologize for the delay."
It seemed only fitting that the day end with a bang, (hopefully not literally) so I was not surprised by the extra delay and did not join the groans. My stomach, however, was less accepting. It groaned loudly as I explained to the lady sitting next to me that I hadn't eaten for almost 12 hours. She nodded sympathetically, but her concern was not deeply rooted. I could see the bag of fritos she had stored in the pocket in front of her. We eventually did take off, but I had a 3 1/2 hour flight still ahead of me. The only thing that gave me comfort during these three hours of empty cravings was the man across the aisle behind me. He had bright, clean, yellow high tops on. They made me happy. Yellow is my happy color. These shoes almost made me smile, which was a pretty big deal, at this point in the day.
I arrived at 12am, California time -- 3am, Dayton time. Both my parents were there to meet me. It's nice to be missed :) And my dad, always practical, and very much against wasting money on fast food *sigh*, brought cold pizza. Having not eaten for the last 15 hours, I was not especially particular, however, and I wolfed down several pieces, then immediately fell asleep.
When we got to Uncle Dave and Aunt Dina's at 1am, the house was dark and still. I could see my cousin Brendan was sleeping on the couch. Feeling deserving of a slightly more exciting welcome, I poked him several times in the head and finally dripped water on his face until he woke up and gave me a hug. Then I went upstairs and to sleep. I was in California! :)
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