I started to write an entry on this when, after getting an 8:20 train for a 13:00 flight, the flight was delayed by an hour with the knock-on effect that I’d miss my 17:30 from philadelphia to chicago. But I decided that I wanted to avoid writing a pointless whinging blog (some of my whinging blogs have a point, though often well hidden, but this one was really just a venting of frustration). Besides, I’d roughly calculated that despite averaging about 16MPH all morning, by the end of the journey I would have averaged about 210MPH. So I could handle the austerity measures on the plane when they started to run out of drinks and ice, and I stoically stood for nearly an hour at the baggage reclaim.

The stoicism started to crinkle a little at the edges when, after reclaiming our baggage, the entire planeful of people was stood in line and given a choice: check your bags in again, go to the gate and hope there’s another plane and it has a space on it, or stand in line and hope the 2 (two (that’s TWO (2))) as in II people at the checkin desks saw you before the NEXT plane departed. Despite landing at 6, it was 8:10 by the time I was hurrying through the airport, skipping the food hall to make the gate by the boarding time of 8:20. Just in the nick of time I hear my boarding group called, and, double checking the flight number and destination (Chicago) on the gate sign, I pass my ticket to the lady and board.

The plane stinks of cigarette smoke and there seems to be a prevalence of weird stares and god references. I stow my carry-on baggage, lose a cover from an iPod earphone, and sit. Next to a guy who strikes up a conversation with me. During which I learn he is going to providence. Which is nowhere near Chicago. Way to go, gate people. So now I’m sitting at the gate, 40 mins after my boarding time, waiting for any mention that we’re boarding any kind of plane any time soon. Meanwhile the pizza stall in the terminal is whispering “you haven’t had an evening meal and it’s late…”

Hmmm.

Abstinence and the certainty of being present when they call flight boarding?

Pizza and a risk of missing my NEXT flight?

No contest.

Addendum: the flight left an hour after the revised advertised time which was 30 mins after the revised connection I was aiming for. The original plane (some 5 hours previous) had been cancelled, so it turned out I could’ve wasted those 4 hours anyway. When I got to chicago, thinking only of a bath, a toothbrush and a change of clothes, it seemed my bag had headed off on its own little tour of the USA. So this morning I am in the same sweaty socks I spent 24 sweaty hours in yesterday. Blleaurgh…