The pilot said it well. “This is just one of those days.” If you fly often enough, everyone eventually has “one of those days.”
I was returning from a wonderful weekend with Jennifer and her family. We celebrated her graduation with her second Master’s Degree. We talked deeply. We laughed our way through a goofy Christmas movie. We celebrated joyfully. For me, it was an absolutely perfect weekend.
My return flight was on Monday. It began uneventfully. I boarded the plane on time at John Wayne Airport in Orange County. I was headed to Dallas to change planes and scheduled to arrive in Costa Rica late Monday evening.
The first clue something was amiss was when the pilot said the weather was bad in Dallas (not unusual) and we would circle until it cleared. The pilot was a woman. She spoke over the intercom with robust confidence, “We’ve got plenty of fuel to circle until the airport is clear.”
So, we circled and circled and circled. After about 45 minutes, she came on again. “It looks like it’s not going to clear and we’re running low on fuel, so we’re diverting to San Antonio.”
Once we landed in San Antonio, we stayed on the plane while it refueled waiting for Dallas to clear up. We waited for about two hours. At that point, I was still hopeful to make my flight from DFW to San Jose, Costa Rica because its departure time kept getting pushed back later and later.
However, once the weather cleared in Dallas, the pilot announced we now had a technical problem with the plane. They called in maintenance and were unsure how long it would take to make the repair. We waited another hour. At that point, I realized I would not make my Dallas connection as the pilot bemoaned, “This is just one of those days.”
Eventually, we found out that our plane would not be ready until the next day. As a result, everyone had to get off the plane. Since we parked a good distance away from the terminal we were bussed to the baggage claim area.
Meanwhile, I was scrambling speaking to American Airlines Reservations to rebook a flight to San Jose. I called three separate times and made three separate reservations as the night wore on.
Another unfortunate consequence of it being “one of those days” was it took over two hours for the luggage to be unloaded. By this time, it was nearly midnight. My only hope of making it back to Costa Rica on Tuesday would be to rent a car and drive all night to DFW. All the flights out of San Antonio would not be in time to make a connection to San Jose until Wednesday.
So, once I finally got my luggage, I grabbed the rental car and set out toward Dallas/Fort Worth.
It’s worth mentioning that I had volunteered to be a “mule” to bring back an array of tech gear for our church. As a result, instead of traveling “light” since I was only gone for a weekend, I came back with four heavy bags. This meant that every time I moved the bags in the airports, I needed to rent a cart to move the bags from point A to point B.
You can count the airports: Orange County, San Antonio and DFW. I kept asking, “Steve, are you having fun yet?” It was just “one of those days.”
In any case, I loaded the bags into my rental car at midnight and began the four-hour drive to DFW. I’m 70 years old and I had not pulled an all-nighter in a very long time. But somehow, by God’s grace, I never nodded even once from sleepiness during the long lonely drive.
I pulled into to DFW at 4:30 AM. I returned my rental car, rented another cart to haul my bags to the shuttle bus to take me to the terminal. Once at the terminal, I grabbed still another cart (my fifth one on this trip) and finally made it to the American Airlines ticket counter. I rechecked my bags, got a new boarding pass and, eventually, laid down on the floor of Terminal D to rest at about 5:30 AM.
At the moment, I am 37,000 feet in the air flying back to Costa Rica. “One of those days” is nearly over.
However, God gave me a big hug on this last leg. I was randomly selected to be upgraded to First Class. So, I’m feeling “fat and happy” schmoozing with the upper crust with leg room and a “real” glass to drink my ginger-ale.
When I was younger, there was a commercial for Western Airlines (which no longer exists). Some of you will recall their branding statement which was spoken with flair and pizzazz: “Western Airlines…the only way to fly!”
That’s how I’m feeling flying First Class after having “one of those days.”
