When There's time to spare, go by Air!

So, boy howdy did we have a big weekend. It was big. Like Barney Fire would say, Big Big! Our son, JoeFish, aka Man’s Best Friend (up until the family got me that wonderful hound dog Satchel) was getting married on Friday. The agenda was a reception on Thursday, nuptials on Friday and horse races at Saratoga on Saturday. My girl Shugaluvs made the flight arrangements for Thursday so we would make sure to be where we needed to be. It was the not to be that clipped our wings and made for a sphincter tightening and anxiety ridden day that made us wish that cannabis was legal.

I do not sleep the night before I travel. Why? Because I’m a twitching nervous wreck, which is another story. I was awake at 0330 am.

“Up in the morning before the rising sun!” as we used to sing in the military.

Anyhow, our ground transportation delivered us on time to the Atlanta International airport with no issues. Normally, I get picked from the throng of folks going thru security and am told “Congratulations! you’ve been selected for further screening.” Why? you ask? I have no idea. However, it entails being magic wand'ed for explosives, contraband, and any other thing that would get me in trouble. During the additional screening I say things like “are you going to take me to meet your parents and give me a ring or just keep at it?” It amuses me to no end. It doesn’t amuse anyone else.
I didn’t get pulled out of line.  YAY ME! We went right to the gate, got some breakfast and loaded the airplane.
(I will say that given the choices of a colonoscopy or being in the vicinity of the Atlanta third world country stepped on ant bed of an airport, my choice is to lay on the table and say “Ahhh”). 

Wheels up, and off we go into the wild blue yonder. We make it to Virginia, and I click a few buttons on the screen to see where we are and notice the direction on which we are flying. It’s north, west, east, south and then repeat.
Circling.
We have a connecting flight at LaGuardia to catch that begins boarding at 1102. I find the departure gate and compare with the arrival gate and then look at my watch. Going to be close if we don't start flying north but the circling continues. I tell Shugaluvs we will have to run like the wind in order to make it. I look at the schedule to find out there are no other flights to Albany any time before that evening.

I conclude to myself this ain’t good.

About that time the pilot announces the weather at LaGuardia has put everything in a holding pattern and now such time has passed that because of our fuel situation we needed to land at Dulles airport to take on more fuel.
Our status just changed from this ain’t good to Oh Sh-t (I’d like to buy a vowel, please).
There was nothing we could do but suffer and continue to be held hostage. Something was bound to turn loose. 

Long story longer, because brevity doesn’t work for me—we landed. The decision was made to allow passengers to deplane. Then it was undecided. Then it was redecided. Then it was un-redecided. All in the course of 3 minutes, which gave me grave concerns about anyone being in charge (see stepped in ant bed).

We deplaned. We gathered at the gate like the refugees we were. Standing, sitting, laying in the floor—it looked like Jonestown Guyana except no Kool Aid, which was located in the nearby store at the firm price of $11.95.

Being an old man, I also had to go to the potty to tie my shoes and, well, potty.

The over efficiency of the automated flush is ridiculous. The paperwork should be completed prior to flushing if you want my opinion. The automated flusher mistook me for the completion of my paperwork 6 times before I actually finished. That would be the only humorous thing I experienced on our delay.
It was not even noon. We received a briefing each hour for the first two hours, when we were told the weather situation had gotten worse. We were told that at 4PM we would receive yet one more update, at which time we were officially informed that there was no update. 

That was it. 

Shugaluvs went to the counter, explained our situation, and they told her they were doing all they could. As it happened, there were only 4 of us that had a connecting flight on the entire airplane. Go figure.
We waited until we could wait no longer.  Shugaluvs seethed. I did the smart thing and let her (que the song Bab Bad Leroy Brown). She began telling the other passengers of our situation that our only son was getting married and the official function required our presence that evening, which brought on a lot of folks pulling for Shugaluvs and the area started to buzz a little--like someone was about to tote a butt whipping. Lyndsay, Conner  and I waited because we figured the security and keepers of the no-fly list were inbound. They had gone and upset my Shugaluvs.

 I glanced over at her and she had her face in her hands. I said to myself, this ain’t good.

She went back to the counter on at least 3 more occasions, requesting our 2 checked bags be removed and we would be glad to get the heck (not sure she said heck) out of their way.

The rest of us were on our phones trying to determine status of rental cars at LaGuardia, train fare from DC, and any other options. Nada.
Shugaluvs then began an online chat with a bot named Oliver, asking how in the H-LL (another vowel please) she could get our luggage. She was told at the gate it couldn’t happen. Each time she had been told 'No' she had asked 'Why' or 'Why not?' and she not once received any good answer. She had 'em on the ropes. They advised going to the baggage control area and request from them. Baggage control was outside the secure area, and we had boarding passes that were still from Atlanta to LaGuardia. Going outside of the TSA area would put us in an even bigger mess. Splitting up, we left the other two at the gate and she and I went to baggage control, where the lady made one phone call and told us it would be 15 minutes and we would have our bags. After spending all afternoon of being told, untold, maybe, we don't know, and everyone acting like the largest airline on the planet had never experienced a delay and had no idea how to handle one just sit here and rot and do like the rest of the sheep, it got fixed because Oliver the Bot said go to baggage control. (The dumbing down of a nation continues).

Incredible.

Delta had made some effort prior to this pint by booking us on a United Flight departing at 5 pm. Well, like every other thing it kept getting delayed as well. We were approaching 6 pm by now but once the call was made to retrieve the bags, I reserved a car just in case and then went find the United ticketing agents to see what our chances were of getting our bags on that departure. After explaining all that I was directed to the long line of folks currently being processed for flights. Nothing was going to work at this point. The moment the United attendant directed me to the along line I got a text from Shugaluvs where the United flight just got cancelled after being pushed out to 7pm.

Our bags showed up, we took the shuttle to the rental area, got in the car for the next nearly 8 hours and drove to our Air BnB, arriving at 0230AM. We missed the reception, but Shugaluvs wasn’t seething once we started driving.

We would make it to the best wedding weekend we ever experienced and leave on Sunday loving everything, everybody, and being grateful. What we experienced on Saturday and Sunday more than made up for the mess on Thursday.
But if we attend any more destination weddings, you can bet your sweet ass we will drive.

The End.