The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men…

And Northwest Airways, often go astray. Or at least it goes something like that, right?

I have been up since 4:30 something this morning. I’m exhausted. I really should still be out decorating my mom’s house for our big family Christmas, but I just can’t bring myself to do any more. Everyone reading this knows I LOVE decorating for Christmas, and that I get to do it twice is just, well, a beautiful thing my dear friends and readers. So that I’m too exhausted to do something that I look forward to doing. All. Year. Long. Well, that’s saying something.

You see, I had plans today. Plans that included being in Texas by roughly ten minutes after two, central standard time. Oh, I couldn’t wait! I was going to get picked up at the airport by my friend Toni, who I haven’t seen since I moved (six months ago), and since I moved she’s got married. I still need details. Details from her about the engagement the wedding, etc. She was going to pick me up from the airport- and we’d visit for a while. I’d grab a bite to eat, and then take a nap. It’d then be out tree farm to get a Christmas tree with my dad and mom and lil sis. Then we’d sing Christmas Carols and decorate the tree. It’d be glorious.

Until…

My flight left Pierre, SD late this morning. That in and of itself wasn’t a big deal. It was supposed to leave at 7. It was 7:15am. They had to de-ice it. Then there was some problem when they did their safety check that had to be fixed. And then I froze the entire way to Watertown, SD, through to the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport. I had originally about a two and a half hour layover at the MN airport, and so I wasn’t concerned with my flight being late. But when we got to the airport, there was a plane in our gate, so we had to wait. And we waited. And we waited. They finally switched us to another gate. Where we waited. And waited. And waited. This time we waited for a gate agent to let us deplane. When I finally got situated and was able to eat something, since I had left early this morning and hadn’t had a chance to eat in my sleep deprived haste, it was about 9:45. I had breakfast- airport food, because apparently in the G terminal in that Minneapolis airport, there is no good food. At least not by my gates. EVER.

By 10:45 our airplane, that we were to begin boarding, at 11 for an 11:30 flight still hadn’t shown up. I didn’t panic. I remained calm, and talked the girl who had her cat in a case, as she was taking him to OKC. I attempted to read my Ollie North book. At about 11, I looked again and the plane was just pulling up. Around 11:15 the first passengers begin to deplane. The woman, behind the counter, giving instructions, appologized for the delay and said that she was sorry we were running late and that we would begin boarding in 5-10 minutes. By 11:45 I was seated. And most people were on the plane. By noon the pilot got on the intercom and told us we couldn’t take off because we were waiting for some paperwork. At 12:15 he gave us the same message. At 12:30 the same thing. And this time he appeared a bit miffed about it and said that “this was not how we do business” and he “under(stood) the ridiculousness of it all.”

In the meantime, there was a screaming child, and some crazed Catholics praying some rosary prayer so loud half of the back of the plane could hear them. No offense to Catholics, but I had to look twice thinking, “Omg, are they praying to Allah?! Am I going to die today?” Don’t hate people. You know. You all do it. They could have passed for Middle Easterners. Anyway, I digress. At 1 (1300 hours! ha ha), we find out there’s a computer glitch and apparently the paperwork can’t be printed so they’re waiting for it to be faxed. At 1:15 they get it, and the pilot says it will be 5-15 minutes while they “look it over”, whatever that means. At 1:30 we finally got our push away from the terminal and were on our way.

By this time, I’ve contacted Toni to see if this messes up her schedule. It did of course. I talked to my dad earlier in the day and he said he’d be free. So I call him to ask if he can pick me up and give him my flight info. He can.

So I’m off. To arrive in Dallas, fully two hours late. To sit at a gate, again. Because there is yet again, NOT A FREE GATE for us to park at. So we waited at least 12.75 minutes. I know because I called Zach and my Dad before I was even off the damn plane. Dad had had car trouble, so he sent mom to get me. Oh, oh, oh, and to add injury to insult, they still charged us for food, which I of course didn’t buy- since they RAN OUT of everything but twizzlers. Oh, that’ll tide me over for 6 hours on your stupid airplane. Maybe I’m cheap, but I wasn’t about to pay $3 for Twizzlers that I can buy in the store for a buck fifty. And to make it worse, we had to smell whatever they served in first class.

Needless to say, dinner, at my favorite mexican food restaurant of all time, was extra good, because I was ready to eat my arm. If I didn’t think security would eat me, I’d pack a lunch, but then I might use that to blow up a plane too.

I’m sorry. I rambled. I was pissed. I had a shitty day.