Planes, Trains and Automobiles

On Monday I was trying to get from Dayton, Ohio to Saint Paul, Minnesota. The route I had chosen to take was relatively direct, as my plan was to fly. That all fell apart slightly after noon when a computer from United Airlines called to tell me that my flight was canceled.

A computer bearing bad news is a pretty strange thing to confront--especially in a Steak 'n Shake. Automated harbingers of doom are never welcome, but they are especially despised when they interrupt a Frisco Melt and shoestring fries.

Just so we're all clear, I did not intend for the last clause of that last sentence to have the rhyme and rhythm of a Doctor Seuss couplet. Read it out loud if you don't know what I"m talking about. The point is, that was accidental.

Anyway, I'm told by Skynet that my flight from Dayton to Chicago O'Hare has been canceled. Without checking with me first, they have rebooked me on another pair of flights for Tuesday. This does not work for me, as I am scheduled to attend my wife's ultrasound on Tuesday morning, during which I will be informed as to whether we are having a boy or a girl. Of course, Skynet just assumes they can schedule me on another set of flights and that will be fine. For those of you who are keeping score, my original flight and my connection have now been canceled and two new flights booked--I have been booked on four flights total.

I call United in hopes of getting another flight out of Dayton for Monday night. Although United is an "airline" whose business is putting people on flights, this task is apparently beyond them. The nice Indian woman who claims her name is Janet informs me that there are no flights going from Dayton to Minneapolis for Monday night. I know this to be a lie, as my wife and son are flying out on a direct flight with no cancellation or delay. Their flight is a Northwest flight. I inform Janet of Mumbai that she needs to find me a Monday night flight even if it is on another airline. She says she will try, and after telling me about three other possible itineraries that would get me home if only they weren't sold out, she discovers that there is in fact a flight operated by Delta that will do the trick. Since Delta owns Northwest now, and since Delta has done everything in their power to expunge the name "Northwest" from the annals of history, I assume she is talking about the flight my wife will be taking. This could work out.

I am put on hold for twenty-two minutes as Janet attempts to contact Delta. I find it interesting that a customer service operator for one airline is being put on hold trying to reach a customer service operator for another airline, and that both of these operators are probably in cubicles within mere miles of each other in the country that brought us the idea of karma. The universe has a way of working itself out. Janet lets me know that she can't get me on the Delta flight because the Delta flight isn't a Delta flight--it's a Northwest flight. United doesn't have a share agreement with Northwest. I argue that Delta and Northwest are the same airline. Janet doesn't care, although I can hear in her voice that she believes she will be reincarnated as something undesirable specifically because of this phone call. We're back to square one.

I ask Janet to keep trying. She asks if I'm willing to fly to another airport besides Minneapolis-Saint Paul. I inform her that flying to a destination other than the one I want to go to is at best counter-productive and at worst downright idiotic. She might as well have asked me if I really wanted to go home at all, or would I consider relocating to Dayton permanently in exchange for drink coupons? I ask her if I could depart from a different Ohio airport, knowing that Cincinnati has service to MSP. She proceeds to tell me about a series of four flights out of Columbus that would be perfect...if it weren't for the fact that they are already oversold. I ask if Cincinnati is a possibility, knowing I can get a ride there if need be. Janet seems unaware of the existence of Cincinnati. However, I believe she Googled it and found the Wikipedia page, as she informs me, "Yes, Cincinnati is in Ohio." Somehow I manage to get booked on a United flight that will get me home after connecting through Chicago O'Hare. For those who are keeping score, I have now been booked on six flights.

I'm off to Cincinnati at the speed of...my father in-law. He drives me in his pick-up and never even flirts with going over the speed limit. He also avoids the interstate, as it goes through downtown Dayton--which is where he believes Satan lives. He says something to the effect of, "Everyone who drives through Dayton dies always every single day forever." He chooses a route that will "avoid traffic," mostly because no one else would ever choose it as a way of getting from where they are to where they need to be. Ninety minutes later, I'm at the Cincinnati airport.

I check in for my flight, but my reservation doesn't show up in the system. The agent tells me she's rebooking me for an earlier flight that was supposed to leave half an hour ago, but has been delayed. She does this without asking me. She also puts me on standby for an earlier flight out of O'Hare--also without asking me. For those who have been keeping score, I have now been booked on eight different flights. There are six people ahead of me in the security line, and there are TEN, count 'em, TEN TSA agents working one metal detector/X-ray unit. They are all staring at the screen. The line does not move for a long, long time. I am convinced they are watching a Reds game. Eventually, they move everyone in our line to the other X-ray/metal detector. We have no idea why.

My flight is delayed a long time. People around me are freaking out. We eventually board, and it is quite possible that I am on a flight with Demarre Carroll. I land in O'Hare, which is the Dirk Nowitzki of airports--it puts up impressive numbers most of the year, but always completely chokes when the pressure is on. Everything in O'Hare is delayed--except my connecting flight, which left right on time moments before I got to the gate.

I continue my mock UN experience by speaking with a gate agent I believe to be Croatian. I know only one phrase in Croatian, which translates roughly to "Toni Kukoc is a fantastic basketball player." I learned it from a Croatian bartender as a way to save myself if angry Croatian wait staff attacked me during the height of the anti-American sentiment during the bombing of Bosnia--it's a long story. I decide to keep my pigeon Croatian to myself. She books me on a later flight and puts me on standby for an earlier one. For those of you who are keeping score, I have now been booked on TEN flights in one day.

I meander through the miserable, hateful people who consistently choke the terminals of O'Hare. I remember a flight out of O'Hare that I was on early last year, the captain of which introduced himself as Grid Hamlet. I hope for something like that to happen so as to salvage something out of this whole fiasco.

For the first time all day, something works out. Even though I am 28th on the list, I somehow clear standby for the earlier flight, and I'm off. Sweet. Merciful. Crap.

Unfortunately, I don't get upgraded to first class, as the FBI is transporting a key witness in a murder trial and they have cordoned off the entire first class cabin for safety purposes. When the flight reaches 30,000 feet, a sensor is activated in the cargo hold, and dozens of poisonous snakes are released from their crates. These snakes, while usually not that aggressive, are enraged and belligerent due to a pheromone that has been sprayed generously throughout the aircraft. If it weren't for the gritty, straight-talking FBI agent, the fact that I didn't try to have sex in the bathroom, and my knowledge of how to say "Toni Kukoc is a fantastic basketball player" in snake, I never would have made it home.

I made up that last paragraph. The rest was true.  By the way, it's a girl.