There and Back Again . . . A Hobo's Tale

OK so there were no dwarves and I wasn’t riding the rails, but there is a hero (me) and a villain (United Airlines) as I relay to you the epic saga of my return to Melbourne.

On Thursday March 10th I left anxious to once again see Abigail. My departure was scheduled for 3 p.m. and for once I had what seemed to be perfect connections….not too much time to kill between flights, but no need for O.J. like heroics sprinting through airports to make a segment. I arrived at Pearson at 1 and proceeded to the lounge to savour a bloody Caesar and wait for boarding. I was informed at this time that there was an undetermined delay due to air traffic control in Chicago. At this point I recall saying to myself “no problem champ, you have plenty of time to make the Chicago connection; things would have to go really off track to miss that one”. One B.C. turned into a few and around 2:15 I staggered my way to the gate to see what time we’d be on our way.

I looked at the giant screen behind the gate check-in and found United flight 864 (check)
Destination Chicago (check) departure time 6:p.m. (alcohol induced head shake).

I realized I was in trouble. The gate agents were busy dealing with passengers who had connections trying to find alternate routes to their final destinations. Before long, I was huddled with a United agent and we worked through the alternatives. Due to March Break there were no alternatives. The only thing they could do was protect me on the flight the following day from San Francisco to Sydney. Big deal I thought.

Fast forward to O’Hare and sprinting to make the connection, also delayed due to gross incompetence. This flight was delayed 3 hours as well and as it was the origin of the flight to Sydney with a simple plane change in san Fran, I was OK right? There was no way the flight to Sydney could depart without the 60 or so passengers from the Chicago flight right? Well the brainiacs at United decided to leave. If they had just held the flight 30 minutes we could have made it. The next flight was not until the following night so now I was stuck in SF for a whole day. I called Abigail from the long line up at the United desk to deal with the non-gruntled passengers. She informed me that after 14 hours of delays, over sold flights, bad food and long queues to get hotel accommodations things couldn’t get worse. Now, Abigail is the smartest person I know (although among my circle of friends this is like saying you are the tallest midget), however in this case things could get much worse.

I arrived at the hotel but despite being exhausted, I really couldn’t get to sleep. For whatever reason I decided to stay up all the rest of the day so I would fall fast asleep as soon as I got on the plane the following evening.

Fast forward to the following evening….Scheduled to leave at 10:15 I arrived at the airport early. I was running on fumes so I was anxious to get on the plane and close my eyes. At 10 p.m. we still hadn’t boarded and we were informed that one of the pilots hadn’t shown up. As pilots are generally required for the successful operation of a jet propelled airplane, we were not going to take off until this Einstein, or someone of a similar ilk was located. This happened around 11:30. The original savant put the wrong date in his calendar and presumably would show up the following night. I was praying I would not still be there. Two hours after we took off, I was actually wishing I was still back there. A jam packed 13 hour flight and a seat in the screaming child aisle was not the recipe for sleep restful sleep. I will not bore you with the rest of my misery but suffice it to say I arrived in Melbourne over a day late and was looking forward to my 3 months in the southern hemisphere with my spousal unit.

The next day I unwound with a long bike ride along the coastline. Watching all the people out running swimming and playing with their children along the waterline it occurred to me that this part of Australia is really California inhabited by normal people. If Australia was owned by the U.S. it would be declared the 8th wonder of the world and there would be a theme park every 20 kilometres or so. I understand John Howard is reviewing W’s proposal as you read this.

What would happen next?